Yahoo Movies Amanda Seyfried Opens Up About Health Challenges During Son's Delivery: 'It Was a Spinal Thing'
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Amanda Seyfried is opening up about her most recent delivery.
At the A Mouthful of Air screening Sunday night at the Roxy Hotel in New York City, the actress shared new details with PEOPLE about the delivery of her baby boy last year.
"I had something that went wrong with my second birth. The baby was okay but it was tricky and it was painful and it didn't have to happen, and it did so it added an extra level of trauma," says the 35-year-old Oscar nominee, who also shares daughter Nina, 4, with husband Thomas Sadoski, 45.
In September 2020, the pair announced the birth of their second child in a statement to INARA and War Child USA.
"Since the birth of our daughter 3 years ago our commitment to the innocent children that are so brutally affected by conflict and war has been a driving force in our lives," their statement read at the time. "With the birth of our son the work of INARA and War Child has become our North Star."
Seyfried tells PEOPLE how she and her spouse juggled their two children while also grappling with her spinal challenges, "You just do. At that point, I'm very freshly out of the hospital, I had to feed him, my husband was with my daughter and I had people that could drive me back to the hospital."
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The actress shared the challenges of delivering a child that include the abrupt cessation of regular health care visits coupled with handling multiple medical invoices while recovering, "I went to the doctor every week at the end of my pregnancy and all of sudden it's like, 'Bye, here's some hospital bills!' I mean, I kept receiving them and I'm still healing from something."
Seyfried revealed the positive current state of her health to PEOPLE, saying, "I'm okay. It was a very physical thing and it was a spinal thing, but I'm okay."
Back in 2016, she told Allure about taking medication for OCD, "Yeah. I'm on Lexapro, and I'll never get off of it. I've been on it since I was 19."
Seyfried also tells PEOPLE about the self-care measures she took in order to prevent postpartum depression.
"I was terrified of suffering from postpartum depression. I ended up doing a lot of CBT therapy before I had my first kid and then I was really lucky, I didn't suffer from any depression and I felt like I had won in some way," she says. "It was hard, and it was so hard, the struggle, but it wasn't anything I didn't think I could handle. And with my second kid, that's partly because I was on my medication and I never got off of it."
Happiest Baby (the makers of SNOO) sponsored the premiere of the film, which heavily focuses on postpartum depression — a topic that Happiest Baby's CEO Dr. Harvey Karp has long been deeply passionate about.
A Mouthful of Air writer/director Amy Koppelman gushed to PEOPLE about how star Seyfried interacted with her daughter Nina, saying, "She's the most nurturing, kind, fun, thoughtful. The best values that you could have, she has."
A Mouthful of Air is in theaters Friday.
