Sheeba Azhar

“Postpartum is such a personal phase, and I don’t think anyone has the right to decide how a woman should look during that time. There is no fixed timeline for getting back to your old routine or your old body. Instead of putting pressure on new mothers, we should be encouraging them to take care of themselves and enjoy that phase of life. I think we also forget that celebrities are not living some perfect, problem-free life just because they are famous. There can be a lot happening behind closed doors that people don’t know about, and an appearance or photograph can never tell you the whole story. The pressure to constantly maintain a certain image can itself be exhausting. A little empathy can completely change the way we approach conversations around women, motherhood and even celebrities.”

Aradhana Sharma

“I think we have become far too comfortable commenting on women’s bodies. After childbirth, a woman deserves appreciation for everything her body has been through, not criticism about how she looks. Social media has also made this worse because people feel they can openly comment on someone’s appearance without thinking about how hurtful it can be. I also feel celebrities are held to a completely different standard because people expect them to look perfect all the time. But they have personal lives beyond what we see on Instagram or on screen, and they deal with their own challenges just like everyone else. We cannot expect someone to look picture-perfect while ignoring the human being behind that image. We really need to learn to celebrate women without attaching their worth to their body or their size.”

Paallavi Chatterjee

“Motherhood should never come with a deadline for looking a certain way. I feel people sometimes forget that postpartum recovery is not a transformation challenge. Every woman has a different body, a different pregnancy and a different recovery journey. Comments about weight, appearance or how quickly someone has ‘bounced back’ can be extremely insensitive.I would also like to highlight another challenge that women, especially actresses, have had to face for years: the mindset of, ‘Ab toh maa ban gayi, toh heroine kaise banegi?’ Things are certainly changing now, but I personally faced this challenge. I became a mother at 16, and when I entered films, I already had a five-year-old daughter. That was one of the biggest challenges for me because I felt I could not allow her to call me ‘Maa’ in public. Even today, she calls me ‘Max’. It would break my heart every single time I had to stop her from calling me ‘Maa’. No woman should have to feel that becoming a mother takes away her identity, her dreams or her place in the industry. Motherhood is a part of who you are, not something that should define or limit what you can achieve.”

Neha Harsora

“The scrutiny women face after childbirth says a lot about the unrealistic expectations we have created around beauty. There is this idea that a woman should quickly get back to her old body, but why should that even be the expectation? Bodies change with life, and childbirth is a major life experience. I think the pressure becomes even greater for celebrities because people have created this perfect image of them in their minds. But behind the camera, they also have families, relationships, responsibilities and their own emotional struggles. We don’t know what someone may be going through just because they look fine in a photograph. Instead of asking women when they will lose weight or get back in shape, we should simply ask them how they are doing.”

Ashmita Bakshi

“I find it unfair that women are expected to look ‘normal’ so quickly after giving birth. Pregnancy changes your body, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with those changes. People need to understand that a woman has just gone through an incredible physical experience and her priority should be her health and her baby, not meeting someone else’s beauty standards. I think this becomes even more intense when the woman is a celebrity because people expect them to always look perfect. But celebrities are human beings too, and there are many things happening in their personal lives that the audience may never know about. We see a few pictures or appearances and assume everything is perfect, which is not realistic. We should stop treating their bodies as something that needs to constantly meet public expectations.”

Aishwarya Raj Bhakuni

“I truly feel that when a woman becomes a mother, her body goes through an incredible transformation. It carries a life, gives birth to that life, and then continues to nurture and protect her baby. There is so much physical and emotional strength behind that journey, and yet somehow we still make women feel that they need to “bounce back” and look a certain way. Every woman deserves the time and space to recover at her own pace. I also feel that celebrities are often expected to maintain this perfect image all the time, as if they don’t have their own personal struggles. People see the glamour and the public life, but they don’t see everything an actor may be dealing with privately. Being in the public eye doesn’t make someone immune to emotions, insecurities or difficult phases. We definitely need to be more compassionate in the way we speak about postpartum bodies.”