Frankie Bridge has said she wants to help challenge the “shame and negativity” around women who experience problems during motherhood.
Bridge, 32, has two children with former footballer Wayne Bridge, who she has been married to since 2014.
The singer told Hello! magazine that becoming a mother “is sold to us as perfect, the best moment of your life, and that’s not always the case”.
“I want to drop the shame and negativity of that and for women to feel they can open up and say, ‘actually, this isn’t all it’s cracked up to be’,” she said.
“And that doesn’t mean you don’t love your child.”
According to the magazine, she said Wayne was supportive when she suffered from depression and anxiety in the early stages of their relationship.
“It was a lot for him to take on that early in our relationship, but he really made the effort to learn what was going on, stayed in touch with my doctors and tried to understand as best he could,” she said.
“I couldn’t ask for more.”
She said her bandmates from The Saturdays “have always been so supportive of me, especially when I first decided to speak out about it publicly”.
“We keep in touch regularly,” she said.
“It’s been a bit harder to see them with our busy schedules and throughout the past year, but we have a WhatsApp group we chat on all the time and we’re always supporting and love to hear about each other’s new ventures and projects.”
Read the full interview in Hello! magazine, out now.