Nick Jonas reveals daughter had to be resuscitated and received six blood transfusions after premature birth

The singer and his wife, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, announced the birth of their daughter via surrogate in January 2022

Nick Jonas has opened up about the health complications his daughter with Priyanka Chopra Jonas experienced after she was born a few months premature in 2022.

The “Jealous” singer and his wife announced the birth of their daughter, Malti Marie, via surrogate in an Instagram post at the time.

Speaking on Wednesday’s episode of Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, Jonas reflected on the day his daughter was born, saying she “came to the world under, sort of, very intense circumstances.”

“We were expecting her to arrive in April of the year she was born, and we get a call that it’s going to be sooner. So basically, we went into action,” he said.

“We got to the hospital, and she came out. She was 1 pound, 11 ounces, and... purple.”

Nick Jonas detailed the premature birth of his daughter with his wife, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, in Wednesday’s episode of Jay Shetty’s ‘On Purpose’ podcast (Getty Images)

After being born three months early, the couple’s daughter spent over three months in the hospital’s NICU (Instagram/@priyankachopra)

He continued: “These angels at the NICU resuscitated her in that moment, and got her taken care of really quickly and intubated and everything else.”

As the hospital was still following COVID-19 protocols at the time of Malti’s birth, the singer explained he and his wife would spend long hours at the hospital until she was discharged three and a half months later.

“I could still sort of like, smell it, you know, there's always visceral things,” he said about his time in the NICU. “It was both comforting and frightening, to be there every day and to see other families going through similar situations.”

Throughout those three months, his daughter slowly began to gain weight and received a total of six blood transfusions before they were able to take her home.

“I feel like she knows how she entered the world and what that first chapter of her life was like,” the Jonas Brothers member said. “And so every day is a gift, and you can actually feel it in her in the way that she behaves and how exciting everything is.”

Chopra Jonas previously discussed what it was like for her to witness her daughter’s premature birth in a 2023 article with British Vogue.

“I was in the OR [operating room] when she came out. She was so small, smaller than my hand,” she recalled at the time. “I saw what the intensive-care nurses do. They do God's work. Nick and I were both standing there as they intubated her. I don't know how they even found what they needed [in her tiny body] to intubate her.”

“I didn't know if she would make it or not,” she added.