There is no doubt that a woman undergoes hardship during pregnancy and at childbirth. Allah, Exalted is He, says: “His mother carried him, weakness upon weakness” [Luqman 31:14]. And He says: “His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship” [al-Ahqaf 46:15].

Postnatal bleeding is blood that issues from a woman after childbirth, during it, or two or three days before it when accompanied by labor pains. But if it occurs without labor pains, then the blood that comes out before childbirth is disordered blood and is of no consequence.

If it is asked: How can we know that it is two or three days before childbirth? A woman may feel labor pains and blood may begin to issue from her, but do we know whether she will give birth within two or three days?

The answer is that we do not know. The basic presumption is that she does not refrain from prayer. However, we have an apparent indication that outweighs this presumption: labor pains, for they indicate that the blood is postnatal blood and that childbirth is near. Accordingly, she refrains from prayer; but if it exceeds two days, she must make up the prayers for the additional time, because it then becomes clear that what exceeded that period was not postnatal bleeding, but disordered blood.

Some scholars said: There is no postnatal bleeding except during childbirth or afterward. Whatever a woman sees before childbirth—even when accompanied by labor pains—is not postnatal bleeding. (1)

According to this view, the woman is spared difficulty: she prays and fasts despite the presence of blood and labor pains, and there is no harm upon her. This is the view of the Shafi'is, (2) and I have mentioned it because of its strength: for she has not yet delivered, and postnatal bleeding only occurs through delivery.