Anna Williamson reveals that her son’s birth ‘traumatised’ her and led to postnatal depression

Presenter Anna Williamson has admitted that her horrific delivery experience stopped her from bonding with her newborn son.

The Celebs Go Dating Celebrity Dating Agent, whose son Vincenzo is now two, told Fabulous online that all her plans for a ‘serene birth’ went out of the window when she was forced to endure a 40-hour labour ending in a forceps delivery.

‘I lost two litres of blood,’ she revealed. ‘I was totally traumatised by the experience.’

The TV star had suffered from anxiety before having Vincenzo and continued to struggle with it during her pregnancy after she was told to come off her medication.

After the birth, she sunk into severe post-natal depression.

‘I had terrible post-birth trauma and felt like the rug had been pulled out from under my feet,’ she explained.

‘All anyone was doing around me was banging on about how happy I must be. I was in shock, I was exhausted, in an awful lot of pain and I wanted everyone including the baby to b****r off and leave me alone.’

Anna admitted that she struggled to bond with her new son for the first few weeks of his life, and also found herself questioning her new identity as a mother.

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Her lowest point came when Vincenzo was around 10 days old, she said. ‘I was on my own with a baby I couldn’t settle and I remember thinking, “Oh my God, is this life now? What have I done?”

It had taken me 18 years to get where I was career-wise and I felt guilty and very de-skilled suddenly becoming a mother and knowing nothing,’ she recalled.

She admits that her relationship with her husband Alex also suffered, saying the first six weeks felt like ‘wading through treacle’.

Happily though, the couple got through it and Anna says she now feels much more confident as a mother.

Despite a difficult start, she reckons she and her partner have now come ‘pretty close’ to finding the perfect balance.

And now Anna wants to reassure other mums that feeling ‘totally crap’ is okay.

‘You are actually feeling what most of us feel and none of us admit,’ she said.