Hayden Panettiere detailed her traumatic birth experience and battle with postpartum depression after welcoming daughter Kaya with former fiance Wladimir Klitschko.

The actress, 36, revealed that she nearly died during childbirth while promoting her new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, on Monday.

Though the Nashville star had a 'wonderful pregnancy', things took a dark turn during her delivery.

'I had a really rough birth to the point where I almost didn't make it through,' she said during an interview with CBS News' Gayle King.

'And then the postpartum depression started,' Panettiere - who signed over custody of Kaya, now 11, to Klitschko, 50, back in 2018 - added.

'There I am with this beautiful, healthy, beautiful baby girl and this very fortunate life, and I could not for the life of me be happy,' she said. 'I was so depressed.'

The Heroes star said that the experience left her disenchanted with the version of motherhood she had dreamt for herself.

'I had all these ideas in my head of what I wanted to do as a mom, as a parent. I think I was also scared because of what my mom did to me that I might do that to my child.'

Panettiere also said that she keeps in touch with Kaya, who lives with her father in Ukraine, via FaceTime calls and in-person visits when possible.

'I'm so blessed to have a great relationship with her. I fly over there as much as I can. I'm on FaceTime with her all the time.'

Elsewhere in the interview the star shared a heartwarming anecdote of how her daughter's friends are fans of her 2006 film, Bring It on: All or Nothing, where she starred as cheer captain Britney Allen.

'She's now 11-years-old and she's calling mommy more and more. She actually FaceTimed me the other day and she calls me Britney. She goes, "Hey Britney." It took me a second, and then I realized she was talking about Bring It On. Because her friends are fans of Bring It On.' 

'She's now asking me to Zoom with her friends. So, I'm cool now,' the proud mom added.

Panettiere also spoke about her complicated relationship with her own mother, Lesley Vogel.

'When your mother has chosen to take the eight-month-old baby to the audition rooms, and it went from there and progressed into 50 commercials by the time I was five. I was on a soap opera by four-years-old. It just never stopped.'

'Every moment on set I didn't care about anybody else's opinion but my mom's. Because I knew that if she was unhappy with my performance in any way, that the rest of the day was going to be ruined. It was going to be a very bad day,' she said.

Earlier this month Panettiere spoke candidly about the 'heartbreaking' decision to give up custody of her daughter amid struggles with addiction and postpartum depression.

The star said she 'desperately' needed help at the time and insisted that Kaya does not feel 'abandoned' while appearing on an episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.

'The idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn't be further from the truth,' Panettiere said.

'I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and postpartum and having to act my way through it, and just feeling like I completely lost myself,' she added.

Panettiere – who also spoke of being put in bed with a 'famous undressed man' at just 18 – said that she was spiraling in her personal life and that it was her idea to seek help.

'A misconception is that I have been in the past forced into treatment, when in fact I have been the one who sought it out, who was saying I desperately need help. I know that this is going to look terrible, but I cannot live like this.'

As for her current relationship with Kaya, Panettiere said they have a strong bond and that they see each other frequently.

'I have an incredible relationship with her. I travel as much as I can, I see her. I do spend a lot of time on FaceTime with her. But we talk about really deep things. We have a really intense, incredible bond, and I'm very grateful for that.'

'I know that she knows that she has two parents who would do anything in the world to make sure that she is happy and healthy mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and she in no way feels abandoned.'

She praised her ex Klitschko for being 'incredibly supportive' even though 'he had no idea what was going on.'

The actress said that when her daughter was about four months old, she went to Klitschko and told him, 'I need help. I can't live like this anymore. Something is terribly wrong. And he said, "Okay, let's get you some help."'

Panettiere then went to a facility where she was treated for 'alcoholism' but not postpartum depression, which caused her to feel 'unfixable.'

The actress said that by the time her health improved, she felt Kaya had already built a wonderful life in Europe and it would have been 'selfish' to uproot her. 

The star's memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, is set to be released on May 19.