Jinger Duggar is opening up about her postpartum depression battle after welcoming her second daughter, Evangeline, in 2020.
“I remember after having Evie, I had postpartum depression,” Duggar, 32, said on the Wednesday, September 2, episode of her eponymous podcast with husband Jeremy Vuolo, referring to their 4-year-old daughter. “It was a little bit later than I expected, too, [and] I was still nursing her, but I was so down. I could not figure out up from down, couldn’t clean my house, couldn’t get up much.”
In addition to Evangeline, Duggar and Vuolo, 38, share daughter Felicity, 6, and son Finnegan “Finn,” 17 months.
Amid her PPD battle, the Counting On alum found solace in her friend group.
“I thank the Lord I had friends who, kind of, realized what was happening. They told me, ‘You need to get help,’” she said. “So, that was really good, but there have been so many seasons and trials [after] that I did not expect.”
Jinger, one of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s 19 children, noted to sister Joy-Anna Duggar on Wednesday’s episode how she has learned to move forward.
“That’s been stretching for me more than anything in this season is letting go of your expectations and ideals for what you thought life was going to look like and being OK with whatever God allows deep down,” she explained. “I think that it’s so easy to have everything mapped out and, without saying it, we have it mapped out in our head. Then, when a curveball comes or something that I’m like, ‘Wow, God, do I actually trust you or was I just in a pattern of sweet season that you’ve given me and taking that for granted?’ So, regardless, um I think that that comes and goes.”
For Jinger, she is especially grateful that God “has carried [her] through” and also dispensed perspective on how to handle her challenges.
“Everything that He allows is for a reason and it’s working something in me,” the TLC alum stated. “I push against it sometimes [and] I’m really upset about it, but then looking at the other side, I’m, like, ‘He’s loving and kind to allow these things and I need to just accept it and be OK with that.’ Now I’m at a place where it’s choosing joy in those days where it doesn’t feel easy.”
Jinger has previously been candid about her PPD experience, noting on an April 2025 podcast episode that the struggles made her wary about breast-feeding son Finn.
“I think postpartum for me with Evie was hard. It was really hard. Once I think I was about 14 months or so, I was still nursing and it was something that I just felt, like, I was in a dark hole and I didn’t know what to do,” she said at the time, weeks after giving birth. “I was like, ‘I’m just done [nursing].’ I didn’t know how to do the weaning process because I was already in such a dark hole.”
Because of her experience with Evangeline, Jinger said that she hadn’t even “considered” nursing Finn.
“Even with this pregnancy, there’s a certain fear that comes back [and] that starts to creep in where I’m like, ‘Oh, now, this is going to happen again and [I’m] going back to that dark place’ where you’re just so down,” she recalled. “I never want to be back there again. Of course I want to be able to nurse this baby, but if that doesn’t happen [and] if I need to pump instead and that’s just what I have to do to not [go] back into that postpartum depression then that might be what I need to do.”
Call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 833-852-6262 for free, confidential support, available 24/7 in the U.S.
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