How long does a woman’s postnatal bleeding last?

Answer

When a woman gives birth, she must leave off prayer and fasting during the days of nifās [postnatal bleeding], the days of bleeding (that is, nifās is the bleeding), for up to forty days. This is the preferred view, and the stronger of the two views of the scholars. If she becomes pure before that, at a month, or less, or more, she takes a ghusl, prays, fasts, and becomes lawful for her husband. She does not have to wait until the forty days are over. Rather, whenever she sees purity, at twenty days, or ten, or fifteen, or a month, she takes a ghusl, fasts and prays, even if she has not completed forty. It has been narrated from the Prophet ﷺ, in a report by Ibn Mājah and others, “that he set a time of forty days for the woman in nifās, unless she sees purity before that”; but its isnād [chain of narration] has some weakness.

In sum, the position of the people of knowledge, and the view of most of them, is that the limit is forty days. If she sees purity before that, she takes a ghusl, prays and fasts for the remainder of the forty, and becomes lawful for her husband. If the bleeding returns within the forty, she again sits out, not praying or fasting within the forty. For example, if she became pure at twenty days, ten days passed with her pure, and then the bleeding returned on the thirty-first day, she sits out: she does not pray or fast, and she is not lawful for her husband, because the bleeding has returned within its time.

If she then becomes pure of it at, say, thirty-five or thirty-six days, she takes a ghusl, prays and fasts for the remainder of the forty, as she does after them. If the bleeding continues without stopping until she reaches forty, she then takes a ghusl, prays and fasts. Even if the bleeding stays with her, it is considered abnormal bleeding, not the blood of nifās. So she takes a ghusl, prays and fasts, and takes precautions, covering herself with cotton or the like to protect herself from the najāsah [physical impurity] of the blood until she is clear of this blood. This is considered abnormal bleeding. Like the mustaḥāḍah [a woman with irregular, non-menstrual bleeding], she prays with it, fasts with it, and is lawful for her husband with it, and she takes what precautions she can to shield herself and her clothes from the harm of this blood. This is the preferred view.

Some of the people of knowledge said that it extends to sixty days, and some said that it extends to sixty days in Arab women and to forty in non-Arab women. None of this has any basis.

The correct view is that its maximum is forty, because of the ḥadīth of Umm Salamah, raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhā, who said: In the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the woman in nifās used to sit out for forty days. The compilers of the Sunan [the major ḥadīth collections arranged by legal topic] recorded it. Its meaning is that this is the maximum: this sitting out is the limit. That is, the longest a woman’s nifās lasts is forty days, and she may become pure before that.

Answer

She makes up the prayers she left. If she left off praying after the forty, thinking that this was required of her, she takes a ghusl and makes up what she left.