Kimberley Nixon thought she would hurt her child

A Welsh actress has described how obsessive compulsive dysfunction (OCD) after she gave delivery made her worry she was a hazard to her child.

Kimberley Nixon, the star of Channel 4 sitcom Fresh Meat, mentioned the pure worries about her child’s well-being escalated into deep anxiousness.

OCD is a psychological well being situation the place an individual has obsessive ideas and compulsive behaviours.

“I was just convinced that I wasn’t doing things right. I wasn’t feeding him right. What temperature is he supposed to be?” she mentioned.

“Every time he cried I was just sort of shaking – I just got really hyper vigilant and terrified.”

Kimberley was finally identified with perinatal OCD, which is if you expertise OCD throughout being pregnant or within the first 12 months after giving delivery.

However, previous to the prognosis, she mentioned each time she seemed on-line for assist, all the recommendation was about “baby blues and feeling sad”.

“I didn’t feel sad, I felt scared,” she mentioned.

The Pontypridd actress, who additionally featured within the movies Wild Child and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, had IVF to conceive her much-longed for son.

He arrived throughout the pandemic in 2020 and, after a traumatic delivery, Kimberly quickly started to have disturbing ideas that she may unintentionally harm him.

“Those thoughts – it was like what could happen to him? How can I protect him? – they morphed into what if you’re a danger to your baby?” she advised Radio Wales’ Books That Made Me with Lucy Owen.

“What if you’re so tired that you drop him or what if you just snap and become a completely different person?

“Now objectively, I can see that would not have occurred, however you’ll be able to turn into actually unwell with it like I did.

“You don’t know what’s real anymore and you don’t trust yourself.

“And so this child, that I cherished a lot, that was lastly right here, I used to be terrified to go close to as a result of I did not need something unhealthy to occur to him.”

Perinatal OCD is when you experience OCD during pregnancy or in the year after childbirth.

You may also hear the disorder being referred to as postpartum OCD.

It often, but not always, revolves around significant fear of harm coming to your baby, with the worries often focused on accidentally or deliberately harming your baby.

The NHS says “it is very important notice that that is fully regular and quite common to sometimes expertise these worries”.

Simon Jones, of Mind Cymru, said it is “regular” to worry about your baby’s wellbeing, and to want to protect your baby.

“If you begin to expertise obsessive ideas and compulsive behaviours that have an effect on your each day life and wellbeing, you could be experiencing perinatal OCD,” he added.

“The obsessions and compulsions are likely to relate to feelings about being a parent and your baby.”

The National Childbirth Trust says that in pregnancy, the rate of OCD may be as high as 5% and postnatally 9%, with rates of OCD similar in men and women.

Kimberley said she had never heard of perinatal OCD until she was diagnosed.

“I turned actually poorly after he was born, however I wasn’t fairly ticking any of the postnatal melancholy bins,” she said.

“And that scares you, if you’re not type of becoming right into a prognosis, and no one appeared to know what to do with me.

“OCD to me was being very neat and liking things in a certain way – I’m one of the messiest people I know, I drive my husband insane, I wasn’t doing any of the compulsion bit of OCD.

“All of my compulsions had been psychological. So it was actually invisible and actually exhausting to learn, exhausting to select up on.”

Mr Jones explained: “OCD has two main parts: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwelcome thoughts, feelings, images, urges, worries or doubts that keep coming into your mind.

“Compulsions are repetitive issues that you just do to scale back the misery or uncertainty brought on by obsessions.”

He said there remains a stigma around perinatal mental health issues, but Mind Cymru is encouraging anyone who thinks they may be affected, to seek support.

“It might be exhausting to open up and discuss to somebody about your obsessions or compulsions, which can result in the situation not being identified and result in emotions of isolation.”

Kimberley has more than a quarter of a million followers on Instagram and she’s been sharing her mental health journey on the social media platform to raise awareness of the condition.

“I began to be very trustworthy about my situation, whereas I used to be nonetheless very poorly with postnatal psychological sickness,” she said.

“Over the final three years, I’ve had 1000’s and 1000’s of messages. And from all people – males, girls, new moms with two-week-olds.”

She said she decided, while at her lowest point and being unable to find anyone to relate with online, that she wanted to be there for people going through a similar experiences in the future.

Kimberley is now recovering and adores spending time with her little boy.

“I’ve bought this unimaginable relationship with my son, that I used to be so anxious I’d by no means have,” she said.

“So I really need folks to know you can, and can, get higher and that it could possibly really make your relationship together with your baby much more particular.”