*Patti LaBelle is in the hotseat on “Oprah’s Master Class” this Sunday, and America’s newest pie queen will talk at length about her past struggle with postpartum depression.
The singer says she had a lot of difficulty after her son’s birth, but hadn’t realized there was a medical explanation for what she was feeling.
“When Zuri was born, I cried all the time,” LaBelle says. “I was just … not feeling myself, the way I used to.”
LaBelle said she had a friend who would step in to help care for Zuri during her low moments.
“My friend Laura would come up and rock him to sleep,” she says.
Like many moms, LaBelle had no idea that was she was feeling was a common condition. “When women go through this, they don’t know that they’re going through postpartum depression. They just think that that’s the way it’s supposed to be for them. They never check it,” LaBelle says.
Though she now knows that what she was experiencing was postpartum depression, the 71-year-old says it doesn’t mitigate how difficult things were for her in those early stages of motherhood.
“I went through a dark period, for a moment,” she says. “And then I snapped out of it.”
For any other mothers who might be experiencing similar feelings, LaBelle has a clear message.
“When you’re going through postpartum depression, those feelings are very normal,” she says. “Don’t beat yourself up. Raise that baby.”
Watch a clip of LaBelle discussing her postpartum here.
LaBelle’s episode of “Oprah’s Master Class” airs Sunday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. ET on OWN.
Watch the promo below:
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