Frankie Bridge was 'convinced she killed her child' while struggling with her mental health

The singer opens up about her depression, anxiety, and subsequent mental breakdown in new book.

Pop superstar Frankie Bridge has opened up about her mental health struggle after the birth of her first child.

Frankie had son Parker, now seven, with footballer Wayne Bridge, and has always spoken openly about her personal struggles with depression and chronic anxiety.

In new book Grow: Motherhood, Mental Health & Me, she describes taking her firstborn to the hospital to get his chickenpox jab before her was twelve months old.

She says this was after receiving medical advice recommending that she do so.

But after receiving conflicting advice about whether that was the right thing to have done, she was left crippled with anxiety and wracked with guilt.

She describes her ordeal - and how she managed to overcome it - in her new book.

Describing the period, she writes: "The guilt and fear I had felt spiralled and it resulted in a complete meltdown."

"My paranoia kicked into overdrive too and I became convinced I had killed my child before he’d even really got the chance to live."

Current official NHS advice states that children don’t need the chickenpox vaccine. As such, it’s not routinely offered on the NHS.

Opening up about her pregnancy generally and how becoming a mum for the first time made her feel, she shared: "On one hand I felt immense pride in the fact that my body was growing another human," she shares.

But she also details how she felt societal pressure as a mum-to-be in the public eye.

She said: "The change in my body and losing control of what my body was doing was really difficult. Being in a girl band and having always looked a certain way and that suddenly changing, and not being able to control it was really hard," she said."

The star says that she overcame her depression and anxiety with a combination of antidepressants and therapy.

Well done to Bridge for always being so honest, open and candid about her mental health - doing so undoubtedly ensures others who are going through similar will know that they are not alone.