Priyanka Chopra opens up about Malti's premature birth and 110 Days in the NICU: 'I was just numb...she was purple'

Dubai: Priyanka Chopra has spoken candidly about one of the most difficult periods of her life: the premature birth of her daughter Malti Marie Chopra Jonas and the 110 days that followed in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The actress shared the details on Jay Shetty's podcast, On Purpose, and it is not an easy listen.

Malti was born via surrogate in January 2022, but arrived far earlier than expected, at just 27 weeks.

Priyanka described the moment she found out. "So when we were told that she was coming at 27 weeks, I shut down. I remember sitting in front of our fireplace at our house for at least 9 hours."

For someone she describes as always being solution-oriented, the stillness of that moment said everything.

"Nick was somewhere and he came back and he just grabbed me and we drove to the hospital."

The circumstances of Malti's arrival were frightening. Born during the height of the Covid pandemic, the environment was already one of high stress for everyone involved.

"She was purple," Priyanka said. "The NICU nurses' little fingers were too big for her mouth. How they intubated her was… I still see that image."

Malti weighed just 1 pound and 11 ounces. She required six blood transfusions during her time in hospital.

"I was just numb. I didn't know what to do and how to be useful at that moment."

What made an already painful situation harder was being pressured to announce Malti's birth before they were ready.

"I remember it leaked and we got a text saying that her birth is going to be put out by the papers… that if we don't, they are going to in three hours," Priyanka recalled.

The couple had hoped to hold onto the news privately while they waited and watched.

"We wanted to hold onto our own narrative of it; we weren't ready because we didn't know what would happen with her or how she would be."

Malti spent just over three months in the NICU. Priyanka and Nick stopped everything and were at the hospital every single day, doing shifts so that Malti could always have skin-to-skin contact with one of them.

Nick would bring his guitar and sing to her. Priyanka kept a small iPod playing softly inside the crib.

"I used to have this little iPod which played all my mantras, my Mahamrityunjay Mantra, my Gayatri Mantra, my Om Namah Shiv mantra. All of it would play all day inside her crib softly."

At a certain point, Priyanka says something shifted in her. She stopped allowing herself to feel afraid.

"Once I got out of the shock state I was in, I realised how afraid she must have been. So I didn't have the privilege of being upset or afraid. I had to show up as her mom and be tough for her."

When Priyanka was finally able to hold Malti against her chest, the moment stayed with her.

"When she was on my chest for the first time… she was so tiny that her fingers felt like butterflies on me."

"In that moment I was like, I will go to the ends of the world to protect you."

From there, she says she became fiercely focused. "I became a tigress about everything, from her nutrition to her medication to her transfusions. Every little thing about her that made sure she gets to that weight and survives was the only order of business."

When Malti was finally discharged, the family marked the moment quietly and privately.

"The day we got her back, she was so tiny. We just as a family sat in front of our mandir. That's the first time I really wept, for grace that she survived."

Nick, speaking separately on the same podcast, became emotional recalling the experience, describing Priyanka as "brilliant" for the way she held everything together during those months.

Malti turned four last month. Nick recently said that every day with her is a gift.

Areeba Hashmi is a trainee at Gulf News.