Jeannie Mai Jenkins got 'really depressed' during breastfeeding experience
Jeannie Mai Jenkins got "really, really depressed" during her breastfeeding experience.
The 43-year-old star and her husband Jeezy welcomed daughter Monaco into the world in January, and the TV presenter has admitted she felt "so defeated" when she couldn't produce enough milk for her little one.
She said: "All I was doing around the clock - even through my sleep by the way, 24 hours a day - was trying to take my vitamins, drink my tea, chew my gummies, and pump milk.
"And nothing was coming out. It was maybe about an ounce.
"This was really, really, really upsetting. You feel so defeated when your baby's hungry, you're not producing enough for the baby.
"You're seeing all these commercials and other women and even Instagram showing these amazing pictures of moms bonding with their kid and breastfeeding their babies, actually just getting really frustrated. You're reading so many different pieces of advice that aren't really just helping you see results."
The stylist started to "give up", but the milk then began building up in her breasts and she suffered from mastitis - when a breast becomes swollen, hot and painful, which is most common in breastfeeding – and it was "so painful".
Speaking on her 'Hello Hunnay' YouTube series, she added: "I've never experienced this type of pain - mastitis started happening, and it was so, so painful. Imagine getting punched in the boob, but instead of getting punched and they let go, it's like one big punch, and it stays there super impacted on your boob.
"Then I'd have to pump in order to get the milk out, but then I'd have clogged ducts."
Jeannie recently admitted she "freaked out" on the day Monaco was born, and she went on to have a "treacherous" experience with postpartum anxiety.
She said: "Honestly, it was treacherous, because nobody told me that there's postpartum anxiety.
"I was happy being a mom I was excited, but I was intensely worried.
"The day Monaco was born, I freaked out. I shut everything down. We were like, 'No cameras, no nothing!' Because I was so afraid of the internet and the people.
"And then, what if someone says something about her that I can't handle? And I'm not being Jeannie Mai Jenkins, the way I should be, you know, polite the way you know me. Like, what if I go ham on somebody?
"For me, it was staying up awake at night wondering and worrying about the weirdest things. And then, if I'm around a group of people, I would think I was hearing stuff that people were saying about me, but it was my own head manifesting things."
