Soap star Toby Alexander Smith has spoken of his experience with postnatal depression and how he recognised the signs.
Toby, who is best known for his role in EastEnders, and his wife Amy Walsh, who stars in Emmerdale, have two children: Bonnie, born in 2021, and Nell, who arrived in March 2026.
Opening up about struggling, Toby said he’s pleased there are ‘more conversations’ starting to happen about dads who suffer from postnatal depression.
Speaking about how he noticed something wasn’t right, Toby credited his wife’s soap storyline.
He said: ‘My wife Amy had actually done a postnatal depression storyline on Emmerdale when she was pregnant, and so I sort of knew all the signs to look out for in her.
‘And I was watching her like a hawk, only to realise that some of those same symptoms were showing up in myself.’
Toby continued to tell The Daily Mail that the ‘highs and the lows were a lot’ and that he felt helpless and a ‘failure’ at times.
He and Amy supported each other, with Toby adding that it was only when he started looking into mental health that he discovered there’s a ‘community of men’ who are going through ‘the same thing.’
‘There isn’t any kind of reference point for dads. It’s a growing community and more and more conversations are starting to happen now, which I think is amazing and, you know, so important,’ Toby said.
Toby also shared about his experience becoming a dad in the short film Finding Calm, which he wrote and was released in 2025.
The film is about a ‘first-time father who becomes overwhelmed by the disconnection he feels from his son’ and was funded through a Kickstarter campaign.
Amy starred in the short film alongside Toby.
Toby and Amy, whose sister is Girls Aloud star Kimberley, got married in Montenegro in 2023, four years after meeting in the Strictly Come Dancing audience.
