Listen up, ladies! Hayden Panettiere wants you to know you're not alone.
During an appearance on Live! With Kelly and Michael Monday, the Nashville actress revealed that like her character, Juliette Barnes, she suffered from postpartum depression after the December 2014 birth of her daughter, Kaya Klitschko.
"I can very much relate. It's something a lot of women experience. When [you are told] about postpartum depression you think it's 'I feel negative feelings towards my child; I want to injure or hurt my child.' I've never, ever had those feelings. Some women do," Hayden said. "But you don't realize how broad of a spectrum you can really experience that on. It's something that needs to be talked about. Women need to know that they're not alone, and that it does heal."
Regarding the stigma surrounding postpartum depression, Hayden said, "There's a lot of misunderstanding. There's a lot of people out there that think that it's not real, that it's not true, that it's something that's made up in their minds, that 'Oh, it's hormones.' They brush it off. It's something that's completely uncontrollable. It's really painful and it's really scary and women need a lot of support."
Hayden, who revealed she hopes to have four kids with fiancé Wladimir Klitschko, continued, "Women are amazing. We do something that no man can do on this planet. I mean, we grow a human being in our body!" Speaking of the heavyweight champion, she told the co-hosts, "I would love it if Wlad figured out a way to get pregnant and he could have the baby. We would be going right now, no problem."
"If he could, would he?" Kelly Ripa asked. "That's the question."
"Absolutely. Absolutely," Hayden assured her. "I asked him this question...He's going to be like, 'I can't believe you told them!' But when I was pregnant, he did this thing where he would suck in his stomach and then I would put my stomach to his so that he could feel when she was moving—almost like she was in his stomach. He wanted to feel what it was like to have a baby as close to him as it was to me."
"Wow," Michael Strahan said. "You put it that way, it makes me wanna cry."