In a recent conversation on Frieha Altaf’s FWhy Podcast, Pakistani actor Zhalay Sarhadi shared her personal experiences with miscarriages, health challenges, and the standards of physical appearance in the entertainment industry.
She began sharing, “Firstly, it’s not because of anything lacking in you – it just happens. That’s what my doctor told me. My first pregnancy was amazing. My daughter was MashAllah (healthy).”
“Later on, I had three pregnancies – they all ended very early on. One was in six weeks, one was in eight weeks, the last one was also five or six weeks. The first one was a little bit of a shock because my daughter was four…The miscarriage wasn’t that bad. I went to recheck and there was no heartbeat, I had a DNC, it ended. It took me back a little, wondering what had happened. But the attachment with the pregnancy was absent at the time,” Zhalay revealed.
“The second time was when I was shooting for Jalebi. If you’ve seen that scene where I’m beating a man whilst on top of him, I was actually going to have an operation the next day…I had already had a miscarriage and it was a bad one at that.”
“I won’t take any names because I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands, but I was misdiagnosed and they said, ‘No no, it’s fine.’ I felt it wasn’t fine…There was bleeding, cramps, other things that weren’t normal,” she added.
Upon getting a second opinion, Zhalay discovered that she had “developed hypothyroidism.”
“I cried for days, I didn’t know why I was crying,” she shared. “Then I had a miscarriage again a few years later. We weren’t really trying, per se, but I decided that this has to stop…I can’t deal with this. It’s traumatic on a mental and physical level.”
The actor also discussed the sensitive issue of body dysmorphia prevalent among brown due to European features, including a certain height, fair complexion, and straight hair, deemed perfect. Sharing her own experience of bullying at the age of 14 for being a chubby child with a “42-inch waist,” Zhalay recalled how she ultimately lost weight and reduced to “24-inch waist” and later contracting anorexia.
Zhalay Sarhadi gets candid about her miscarriages and women s fertility issues
