Gina Rodriguezis opening up about her postpartum journey after welcoming her second child, daughter Lucille, last year
“[It was] so much harder,” Rodriguez, 42, exclusively tells Us,while discussing her partnership with Philips Avent.“I got postpartum depression the second time around, and I didn’t have it with [my son], Charlie.”
The Jane the Virginalum andher husband, Joe LoCicero, welcomed Charlie in 2023, followed by Lucille in 2025
“I don’t know what it was. How could I have known?” Rodriguez says of PPD. “I don’t know what it was, but they were very different journeys, and it was my village that showed up that made it so much easier because … I needed help, but I wasn’t afraid to ask for it.”
The actress, who notes that her struggles could also be classified as postpartum anxiety, tells Us she is now doing better
“I thankfully feel like I’m out of that space. My daughter’s 9 months old [now],” Rodriguez adds. “Looking back, I don’t even know what it was, but it was the people that helped me that I remember most.”
While prioritizing her mental wellness, Rodriguez had LoCicero, 39, in her corner for support
“What’s really wonderful is that I have this incredible partner who has gone on his own mental health journey for the past 10 years that we’ve been together,” Rodriguez explains. “When I was going through my postpartum [journey], he had said to me, ‘Hi, my love, I think we need to get you a little bit more help,’ and not in the [way] like, ‘There’s something wrong with you, but there are ways in which I can support you, and then there are ways that I am not the best person to do this.’ And that’s when he was like, ‘I’d love to get somebody that you can talk to.’”
Rodriguez says she realized that she struggled to “emotionally regulate” herself after giving birth to Lucille
“Rage and motherhood [were] so new to me. I could handle my son’s tantrum like a G. I mean, I would sit back and be like, ‘I love you. I’m here. I understand, like, let’s just sit in this.’ Then, after having the baby, I was afraid of it,” she tells Us.“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t know how to emotionally regulate myself. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what’s coming over me.’ That’s what was happening internally while I was trying to hold it all in.”
LoCicero, meanwhile, wanted to help his wife “relieve” her thoughts with the help of a trained professional
“I have a partner [who] is so cognizant of what he is, what he can do and what he cannot do, and has no embarrassment or no, like, emasculation about the fact that like there are ways in which I can contribute and there are ways in which I need to have other people help,” Rodriguez states. “He got me a binding ceremony, and he got me women around me [who] can validate my experience and birthing people who could validate my experience that he knew he couldn’t do, and nor was he trying to pretend like he could.”
Just as Rodriguez found a support system in her own village, Philips Avent is helping other moms find their own community
“Philips Avent’s Share the Care Connector is something I wish I had [after welcoming] my two children, when I was navigating motherhood,” Rodriguez tells Us. “I think that motherhood was never meant to be done alone. … This program is going to be wonderful for first-time mothers who aren’t aware that the village is so imperative to our experience postpartum. I didn’t know that. I navigated my first child so much alone because asking for help is so hard and something that I’m personally working on asking for help.”
Rodriguez explains that the Share the Care Connector helps set up new moms “for a nice foundation” in their respective postpartum journeys
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“It helps you get your village, so that you are not looking for that support when you need it most because it’s kind of the hardest time to ask, and you also have no idea what you need,” she says. “The Share the Care Connector really helps, not only yourself, but the whole village really disperse the tasks and the support that mom needs, and I think it’s brilliant. I, honestly, [was] so impressed when I first heard about the program.”
Call or text theNational Maternal Mental Health Hotlineat 833-852-6262 for free, confidential support, available 24/7 in the U.S
