Ashley Tisdale is sharing her frustrations with a medical system that leaves new mothers to fend for themselves.
In the debut episode of her husband Christopher French’s new podcast, Recovering, the High School Musical star discussed the difficult months after their first daughter, Jupiter, was born.
“You just do a six-week checkup, and then they’re like, ‘cool,’ and then it becomes like, about the baby,” she said on the podcast. “I remember feeling very neglected, and I just felt like I just didn’t even know who I was.”
Losing Her Identity
Before giving birth, Tisdale said she felt “emotionally equipped” to handle motherhood, but the drastic hormonal changes caught her off guard.
“I got hit with postpartum depression, which is really hormonal, and all of the tools that I had learned and knew how to use, you can’t use,” she said. “I remember being in the car and almost having a panic attack just being in traffic. I’m like, I was never this bad, and then nobody was diagnosing me with it, too.”
Instead of screening her for postpartum depression, Tisdale said her OB-GYN misdiagnosed her with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) — a severe form of PMS that causes intense mood shifts in the weeks leading up to a period — but when Tisdale asked for treatment options, her doctor told her there was nothing they could do.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 1 in 8 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression after giving birth.
Despite how common the condition is, she spent the next two years terrified she would be stuck feeling miserable forever. It wasn’t until Jupiter’s second birthday — when the symptoms seemed to subside — that a doctor finally confirmed she had actually been suffering from postpartum depression.
A Better Support System
To avoid a repeat of her first birth, Tisdale and her team built a strict postpartum care plan before she welcomed her second daughter, Emerson, in September 2024. Her doula scheduled people to check in on her every few days to ensure she had support after leaving the hospital.
The change made a huge difference. Tisdale described it as an “extreme opposite” experience. “I was so happy, I didn’t even stay in bed,” she recalled.
“It scares you from having another baby,” she said of PPD. “You’re like, I don’t want to go through that again.” But because every postpartum experience is unique, Tisdale encouraged other mothers to stay hopeful. “I think it’s so great to even just try again, because I’m so grateful to have the opposite of that [experience].”
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