Jennifer Lawrence says she struggled with postpartum anxiety after giving birth to her second child.
“I just thought every time he was sleeping he was dead,” Lawrence told The New Yorker on Monday. “I thought he cried because he didn’t like his life, or me, or his family. I thought I was doing everything wrong, and that I would ruin my children.”
The “Hunger Games” star has two sons with her husband, Cooke Maroney. She welcomed her first child in 2022 and her second one earlier this year.
She described a moment when she found herself crying while asking ChatGPT for breastfeeding advice.
“You’re doing the most amazing thing for your baby,” Lawrence said, recalling the AI chatbot’s words. “You’re such a loving mother.”
She said that hearing that from a bot left her doubting whether anyone else who said the same thing to her really meant it.
Lawrence also said she took Zurzuvae, an oral medication approved by the FDA in 2023 for postpartum depression, and credited it with easing her symptoms.
The actor also reflected on how her two postpartum experiences differed.
“I had a worse postpartum with my second, but the first time the only thing I was at war with was the rest of the world,” Lawrence said.
Speaking at a press conference for the premiere of her latest film, “Die, My Love,” at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Lawrence said her postpartum experiences felt “extremely isolating.”
“The truth is extreme anxiety, and extreme depression, is isolating no matter where you are. You feel like an alien,” Lawrence said.
At the same conference, Lawrence also said that having kids changed her “creatively.”
“I didn’t know that I could feel so much, and my job has a lot to do with emotion. It’s almost like feeling a blister or something — like, so sensitive,” Lawrence said.
A representative for Lawrence did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.
Postpartum anxiety occurs when normal worries become overwhelming and start disrupting daily life. It is most commonly diagnosed within six months after birth, Mayra Mendez, a psychotherapist at Providence Saint John’s Child and Family Development Center in Santa Monica, told Business Insider in 2020.
Small behavioral changes, like getting more sleep and practicing mindfulness, can help keep the anxiety under control, Mendez said.
Unlike postpartum depression, which is characterized by sadness, irritability, and fatigue, postpartum anxiety manifests as a form of constant worry, such as hypervigilance and an overwhelming sense of fear or dread, per the National University Health System Singapore.
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