Mum opens up about mental health crisis and the moment she tried to kill husband and child

Laura appears on a Channel 4 documentary tonight to talk about postpartum psychosis and how she tried to kill herself, her husband Dan and their newborn baby daughter Olivia.

The 31-year-old office administrator said she was not sleeping, struggling to breastfeed and also had a blood clot in her leg, followed by suspected sepsis.

In the documentary, Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency, which airs at 10pm, she describes how at the peak of her condition she tried to drive into a wall to kill herself, her husband and their baby as they were travelling to a friend’s for lunch.

She said: “Dan was driving but in my head he was blinking for longer periods than normal as if he was about to fall asleep, so I asked him to pull over and said I would drive.

“I got in the driver's seat and cried and explained to him that I was having hallucinations.

“I was really upset and, because he didn't comfort me, it made me mad and angry and I asked him if I could end it.

“In a split second I just set off in the car. It felt like somebody was trying to take one of us and I just wanted us to be together, so logically the only way to be together was to end it.

“I was going faster and faster and saw a wall. Dan was screaming ‘Please stop, please stop, Olivia needs a mum and a future, please stop’.

“In the end, he pressed the stop/start button which slowed down the car really quickly.

“Dan took Olivia out of the car and then I set off again, driving on my own and thought ‘If I die, then I can wait for them’”.

Laura was sectioned and taken to Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust for treatment.

She said: “I still feel guilty, that's not gone away, even though it wasn’t me, it could have ended so differently. I owe my life to the unit.”