When to Resume Prayers After Having a Child

Answered by Ustadha Shaista Maqbool

Question: Asalam Alakium,

What is the ruling on when a woman is able to pray again after delivering a child. Besides having up to 40 days, when can the mother begin her prayers again?

Answer: Wa’ailukum assalaam warahmatu Allah,

As soon as a woman stops seeing blood, be it menstrual or post-natal bleeding, she is obligated to resume her prayers.

After delivering a child, she may bleed up to 40 days in which all those days would count as valid bleeding if she stops at 40. However, if the bleeding went over 40 days, she would go back to her last lochia habit; i.e. her last delivery if she had been pregnant previously. If this was her first pregnancy, she would consider the blood after 40 days as invalid and resume prayers then.

wasalaam,
Shaista Maqbool

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani