When does a woman in labour (for childbirth) stop performing the salah? Does she still perform the salah if she is having contractions but no fluid has come from her body yet?
Praise be to Allah.We put the following question to Shaykh
Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen, may Allaah preserve him:
If a woman whose pregnancy has reached full term passes blood
and has pains, but she does not know whether these are the contractions that will lead to
childbirth or contractions that will later ease off [“practice” contractions,
also known as Braxton-Hicks contractions], should she pray or not?
He answered, may Allaah preserve him:
Of course, there are two things we may assume here:
The first is that the pregnancy will continue without
contractions.
The second is that the apparent case is that these are
contractions, so she should stop praying.
If this is what usually happens to her, and she may carry on
having contractions for four or five days without giving birth, then in this case she
should still pray.
Question:
If she acts upon the second assumption, then the contractions
ease off, should we tell her to make up the prayers she has missed?
Answer:
It is preferable to make them up, because she took her
decision on the basis of an assumption.
In summary, then:
If this woman usually has contractions for a number of days
– more than two or three – then this is not nifaas and she should pray. If that
is not what usually happens, then we assume that it is nifaas in the sense that she should
stop praying. If she stops praying, then it turns out that it was not nifaas, then in this
case we say that if she makes up the prayers she has missed, this is good, and if she does
not make them up, there is nothing wrong with that because she acted on an assumption.
And Allâh knows best.