By Ana Carolina Saavedra

I never imagined I could experience depression during pregnancy. I’ve spent my entire career helping people understand their emotions, strengthen resilience, and create wellbeing in their lives. I’m a psychologist. I’ve trained in positive psychology, mindfulness, executive coaching… I help leaders navigate complexity and uncertainty with presence and clarity.

So the idea that I could be overtaken by thoughts that didn’t feel like mine? That felt impossible. Or so I thought.

During my second pregnancy, in the isolation of the pandemic, with a toddler at home, work shifting entirely online, and a miscarriage still etched in my history, something inside me shifted.

It began as a whisper I didn’t recognise.
“I don’t want to have this baby.”
Then a sentence that made my chest tighten.
“Maybe it would be easier if I lost it.”
Then a quiet admission I didn’t want to hear.
“I don’t know how to cope with another child.”

As a psychologist, I knew these were intrusive thoughts. As a mother, I felt terrified. As a human, I felt confused.

I told my husband immediately, because he is my support in good times, bad times, and the hardest times. And I know, as a psychologist, that you don’t make it through those moments on your own. . I thought maybe I was experiencing early postpartum depression, I didn’t know prenatal depression existed. A week later, I was crying almost constantly, but not from sadness. It was more like my system was short-circuiting, releasing emotion without meaning. That’s when I knew something inside me had tipped out of balance.

This moment humbled me. It took me to a place of complete consciousness (physically and emoctionally) , a vulnerability I had never allowed myself to inhabit, even after years of helping others move through their most vulnerable moments.

What Helped Me Through It

1. Talking About It and Naming It

Speaking the truth out loud created a crack of light in the darkness. Once I told my husband everything, the confusion loosened. We began researching and asking for help from specialists. We realised this had a name. And when something has a name, it becomes treatable. Navigable. Human.

It wasn’t me. It was something happening to me, and that distinction helped me navigate through it with more compassion towards myself. .

2. Letting the Feelings Move

I gave myself permission to stop performing “strength.” I wasn’t resilient at that moment, I was raw.

I cried in the shower. I cried before I had to give a workshop to a group of leaders. I cried because crying felt like I was “cleaning” myself, instead of fighting against it. .

Letting those feelings move through me was strangely cleansing. Not pretty. Not poetic. But real. And real was what I needed.

3. Moving My Body (Even When I Didn’t Want To)

Movement became a way of reminding myself that I still lived inside my body, and that there was a human being inside me growing. Some days I could barely get dressed, but I had someone close to me who held me accountable with gentle consistency, my husband.

I wasn’t trying to be fit. I was trying to stay connected to myself and releasing dopamine in some way.

Movement didn’t cure me, but it shifted my chemistry enough to give me a window of relief. Sometimes that’s all you need to keep going.

4. Asking for Help: The Kind That Changes Everything

One friend stepped in in a way I’ll never forget. She took my daughter so I could rest. She helped me find therapists who specialised in prenatal and postpartum mental health. She checked in without asking me to perform being “okay.”

For someone who spent her life supporting others, this was one of the most disorienting parts: letting myself be supported.

But once I let people help me, things were smoother. .

Motherhood was never meant to be solitary and depression was never meant to be suffered alone.

Healing Was Not Linear

There were days I felt normal. Days I felt like the fog had lifted. Days when I played with my daughter and felt the familiar warmth of joy.

And then there were days when the intrusive thoughts and physical discomfort crept back in.

Healing wasn’t a straight path. It was a spiral, returning to the same feelings with slightly more clarity, slightly more capacity each time.

I kept a very simple journal during that period, not to analyse, but to witness myself.

Here is a snapshot of it, recreated as a chart:

What My Weeks Looked Like (A Pattern I Only Saw in Retrospect)

Why I’m Sharing This

I didn’t end up taking antidepressants, though I was open to it. This isn’t a story about “overcoming” depression through willpower. It’s a story about honesty, support, and choice. It’s a story about how even people who teach wellbeing can find themselves lost inside the very terrain they help others navigate.

In my work with teams at McKinsey, Pfizer, HSBC, Kenvue, and global organisations, I teach leaders that vulnerability creates connection. But this experience forced me to live that lesson in the most intimate way.

It reminded me that no amount of expertise protects you from being human.
And no mother should ever feel shame for struggling during pregnancy.

Prenatal depression happens more often than we talk about.
It doesn’t mean you don’t love your baby.
It doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful.
It doesn’t mean you're broken.

It means your body and brain are under enormous strain.

And if you’re in this chapter right now, the fog, the tears that come from nowhere, the weight you can’t quite name. I want to offer you something that helped me more than I expected: small rituals of nourishment. Tiny, steady moments that remind your nervous system that you’re safe, that you’re held, that you still exist beneath the overwhelm.

That’s why The SABI created Mama Recover, a warm, grounding herbal infusion crafted to support the emotional and physical depletion that pregnancy and postpartum so often bring. It’s not a cure; it’s comfort. A gentle companion for the days that ask more of you than you ever thought you could give. A moment of strength disguised as softness.

If you’re looking to understand this chapter even more, we’ve gathered other stories and resources that explore antenatal anxiety, PPD, and the quieter struggles so many women face: 

• Identifying Postpartum Depression 

• Becoming New: The Silent, Beautiful Work of Postpartum Growth

• Defining your Postpartum Village

If You’re Struggling, Here Are Resources That Helped Me

Support & Education

• Postpartum Support International (PSI) – resources for prenatal & postpartum depression
  
  

• The Motherhood Centre - therapy + support groups
  
  

• Mind (UK) – maternal mental health resources
  
  

• Dr. Oscar Serrallach’s work on postnatal depletion
  
  

Books

• "Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts" by Karen Kleiman
  
  

• "The Pregnancy and Postpartum Mood Workbook" by Beth H. Rom-Rymer
  
  

Therapeutic Tools

• Clinical perinatal psychologist
  
  

• Body-based practices: somatic grounding, breathwork, prenatal yoga
  
  

• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)

ABOUT ANA CAROLINA SAAVEDRA

Ana Carolina Saavedra is a Leadership & Positive Psychology Coach and Senior Consultant with over 16 years of experience helping individuals and organisations unlock their highest potential. With a background in Psychology and advanced training in Positive Psychology, Mindfulness, and Executive & Team Coaching, she has worked with global companies to elevate leadership, strengthen team performance, and build cultures rooted in wellbeing and emotional intelligence.

A true believer that every human being can transform into the best version of themselves each day, Caro has delivered more than 700 hours of Executive and Team Coaching and over 500 hours of facilitation across industries. Her work blends scientific rigour with deep empathy, creating environments where leaders and teams can grow sustainably and authentically.

Alongside her corporate impact, Ana is passionate about bringing mental health conversations into the spaces where they’re needed most, including motherhood. Her own experience with prenatal depression has shaped her mission to make emotional wellbeing more honest, more accessible, and free from shame.

HORMONAL & PROUD

Created as a brand to help women navigate the toughest moments in pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, and practically every stage of life, The SABI is changing the narrative around our hormones from one of taboo, embarrassment, and loneliness to awareness and even, pride. As more than a wellness brand, The SABI offers a carefully-crafted line of products to carry you through your hormonal journey, including rituals, supportive tools, and ancient herbal remedies that have been tested time and time again by women and now come backed by medicine. The SABI is a blend of science and nature conceived by women who have experienced the joys and deep struggles of bringing a child into the world, the pains of a heavy, difficult period, miscarriage, and difficulty conceiving.

We invite you to get to know your body and its cycles better; to really understand what is going on inside. Learn to use your hormones to your advantage no matter your stage of life, and know that you can support and balance your hormone levels. We are here to help with the information, understanding and natural tools to support your body and the emotional process along with it.

DISCLAIMER

The SABI blog and articles are not meant to instruct or advise on medical or health conditions, but to inform. The information and opinions presented here do not substitute professional medical advice or consultations with healthcare professionals for your unique situation.