Christine McGuinness "blamed" herself for her children’s autism diagnosis.
The 32-year-old model – who has Felicity, four, and six-year-old twins Penelope and Leo with Paddy McGuinness – admits she thought her kids’ diagnosis was because she had made "mistakes".
She said: "It’s hard enough being a mum but when you have children with additional needs its daunting. You wing it at first. You make mistakes but that’s just natural.
"But I didn’t know they had autism at first because I didn’t know anything about autism. They didn’t speak. They were non-verbal, they’d walk on their tiptoes, they were sensitive to sound and light. So if there was a sudden noise, they would jump out their skin. But I thought they were just softies. I would think maybe it’s because they are twins, two of them, or that I would not be giving them enough attention. So I blamed myself."
And Christine opened up about her own personal journey, as she battled to beat an eating disorder so she could get pregnant, but in the end, that was what actually that helped her through it.
Speaking on MTV podcast Nappy Days, she added: "I had to get over the eating disorder to get pregnant, I don’t think i would have conceived while I was still so underweight because I wasn’t ovulating, so I had to sort that out …
"Once I was pregnant all of those fears and worries thinking about weight just left me. Mother Nature and my own nature kicked in. I knew I had to eat to keep these children healthy and give them the best start."