Hayden Panettiere is "voluntarily seeking professional help" for post-partum depression.

She’s been open about struggling.

Hayden Panettiere has entered a treatment centre for post-partum depression.

The Nashville actress, 26, gave birth to her daughter with boxer Wladimir Klitschko, named Kaya Evodokia, in December last year.

A representative for Panettiere told People that she is “voluntarily seeking professional help at a treatment centre as she is currently battling postpartum depression. She asks that the media respect her privacy during this time.”

Panettiere’s Nashville character Juliette Barnes has also suffered post partum depression, and she’s spoken about the parallels between their experiences.

“It’s something a lot of women experience. When [you’re told] about postpartum depression you think it’s ‘I feel negative feelings towards my child, I want to injure or hurt my child’ — I’ve never, ever had those feelings. Some women do,” she said on Live! with Kelly and Michael last month. “But you don’t realize how broad of a spectrum you can really experience that on. It’s something that needs to be talked about. Women need to know that they’re not alone, and that it does heal.

“There’s a lot of misunderstanding — there’s a lot of people out there that think that it’s not real, that it’s not true, that it’s something that’s made up in their minds, that ‘Oh, it’s hormones.’ They brush it off. It’s something that’s completely uncontrollable. It’s really painful and it’s really scary and women need a lot of support.”

Panettiere posted a picture to Twitter on Saturday, captioning it “finally coming back in to my own body”.