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Kristen Bell Told Dax Shepard to 'Go Ahead and Nurse' When She Had a Clogged Duct While Breastfeeding

Kristen Bell Told Dax Shepard to 'Go Ahead and Nurse' When She Had a Clogged Duct While Breastfeeding

Kristen Bell isn't afraid to get realer than real when it comes to her marriage and parenthood. The 41-year-old mom of two got extremely candid during her Momsplaining segment for The Ellen DeGeneres Show

While talking with actress Katie Lowes about breastfeeding and suffering from mastitis -- a painful infection of the breast tissue that occurs when there is a blocked milk duct -- Lowes recalled a discussion she had with Bell about her husband, Dax Shepard, assisting with a clogged duct. Bell and Shepard share daughters Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6.

"I said to my husband, 'I just need you to suck this out,'" Bell said of Shepard in some throwback footage from 2018. "We could talk about it. We could be weird about it or you could just go ahead and nurse." 

Shepard stepped up to the plate and helped his wife out. 

"He pulled it out. He had a cup next to him," she shared. "He was pulling out and spitting into this cup, and I've never been more in love."

Lowes said of her own husband, actor Adam Shapiro, "Adam has never had to nurse out a clog but he has said numerous times, 'I would do it.'"

She and Lowes also talked about struggles with postpartum depression. Lowes has 3-year-old son, Albee, and welcomed her daughter, Vera Fay, in November 2020.  

"I should have been on high alert that if you've had it before, it can be worse with the second," Lowes shared. "Postpartum depression with my daughter, I got brought to my knees. Horrible, very, very scary, textbook -- suicidal thoughts, terrible thoughts about my children." 

Though she was diagnosed with postpartum depression and prescribed medicine, Lowes rejected the idea at first.

"Even still I was like, 'No, no, I'm fine,' as panic attacks were rolling in more like every time my daughter's crying and I have to go breastfeed her. I don't want to go," Lowes admitted. "Then I woke up and I started to have some really negative thoughts about my son, my toddler because he's a toddler and he's difficult. 'I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here anymore.'" 

The thoughts caused Lowes to finally get medication. 

"Started my medication journey so I have to say, thank god for science, friends, support systems, my doctors, everything, because everything everyone said was true, which was once you get on it and stabilize, you will feel like myself," she shared. 

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