A 36-year-old mother’s postpartum depression: ‘I felt like I was in a dark box with no windows’

postpartum depression

Just four days after giving birth to her son in September 2020, Ethel Yap found herself in the emergency department.
“Every time my body jerked itself awake, I was gasping for breath, like I was suffocating, choking, breathing in water,” said the 36-year-old singer-songwriter and theatre actress.
It was so bad that doctors feared she might have heart failure and admitted her.
There, while fighting for breath and sleep, she continued to pump breast milk, which her husband shuttled back daily for their infant.
Throughout, a constant stream of doctors and nurses in full personal protective equipment ran MRI scans, heart ultrasounds, X-rays and other scans on her.