Hefsek after miscarriage
4 September, 2017
Question:I just had a d&c procedure after being pregnant for 7 weeks that ended up in a miscarriage. I was bleeding for a good 3 weeks prior to my procedure. I had the d&c yesterday and now I am only spotting. When do I do my hefsek? How do I know when to go to the mikvah?
Answer:We are sorry to hear of your miscarriage.
You are permitted to perform a hefsek taharah as soon as you feel ready for it. Clean yourself well internally beforehand, as by soaking in a bath, to minimize interference from residual spotting. For this cycle, you may omit the moch dachuk.
If you are uncertain about the color of the hefsek taharah or of another bedikah, please bring it to a halachic authority for evaluation rather than assume the clean days cannot start or have been invalidated.
A stain found on white undergarments during the clean days does not invalidate them as long as its size is smaller than a gris (roughly the area of the American dime or Israeli shekel). Larger stains can also be evaluated for color as necessary. Please see our article on stains for more details about staining, and please contact us if you have any trouble getting through the clean days.
Mikveh immersion is permissible as soon as you finish the clean days. (The exception would be if both the major part of the tissue did not pass until the D&C, and the D&C took place over forty days from your last mikveh immersion. If that is the case, you should not immerse prior to the fourteenth day following the D&C, even if you complete your clean days sooner. Our article on miscarriage discusses these halachot in more detail.)
We wish you a refuah sheleimah. Please don't hesitate to write us with any further questions.
This internet service does not preclude, override or replace the psak of any rabbinical authority. It is the responsibility of the questioner to inform us of any previous consultation or ruling. As even slight variation in circumstances may have Halachic consequences, views expressed concerning one case may not be applied to other, seemingly similar cases. All health and health-related information contained within Nishmat's Women's Health & Halacha Web site is intended to be general in nature and should not be used as a substitute for consulting with your health care professional. The advice is intended to offer a basis for individuals to discuss their medical condition with their health care provider but not individual advice. Although every effort is made to ensure that the material within Nishmat's Women's Health & Halacha Web site is accurate and timely, it is provided for the convenience of the Web site user but should not be considered official. Advice for actual medical practice should be obtained from a licensed health care professional.
For further questions or comments: 
The Nishmat Women's Health and Halacha Site is a public service of Nishmat, The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women. This project and others like it are made possible by contributions from people like you. If you have benefited from the service, and wish to enable us to help others, click here to donate.
Users of Internet filtering services: This site discusses sensitive subjects that some services filter without visual indication. A page that appears 100% complete might actually be missing critical Jewish-law or medical information. To ensure that you view the pages accurately, ask the filtering service to whitelist all pages under yoatzot.org.
Ask a Yoetzet
Golda Koschitzky Hotline
