Pretty baby

Brooke Shields risks postpartum depression for a second time.

Published October 28, 2005 5:36PM (EDT)

As our sibling the Fix reported this morning, Page Six says that "Blue Lagoon" actress Brooke Shields is pregnant with her second child. Ordinarily, this would not qualify as news. (If that kind of stuff qualified as news, we'd also report that on "Ellen" this morning it was heavily intimated that Gwyneth Paltrow is pregnant with her second child. But that's not news. So it's in parentheses.)

Shields' pregnancy announcement is notable because of the very public battle she had with Hollywood's favorite loon, Tom Cruise, this summer. Cruise -- during his psycho shrieky couch-jumping media tour -- lit into Shields after the publication of her book, "Down Came the Rain," about her battle with postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter, Rowan. Cruise, a Scientologist who does not believe in prescription medication to treat depression, suggested to Matt Lauer on the "Today" show that Shields' advocacy of such healing was irresponsible and that she should have coped with her sometimes suicidal depression by taking vitamins and exercising. In response, Shields smacked Cruise down on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.

And now, she's pregnant again.

A round of Paxil, all around.


By Rebecca Traister

Rebecca Traister writes for Salon. She is the author of "Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women" (Free Press). Follow @rtraister on Twitter.

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