1) We do not recommend taking active pills for the next two months, because there is a good chance that the staining will not let up by then; if anything it may intensify and get worse.
What we do advise is to try to
shift your cycle by a week or two to allow yourself to be
tehorah by your trip. You should take an extra week or two (as needed) of active pills this month before taking your week of inactive pills, timing it so that you will have already immersed and started taking the next pack of active pills by the time you leave on your trip. The next month take the usual amount of active/inactive pills. This way, while you may experience some breakthrough bleeding this month during the extra week or two of pills, it will have most likely have cleared up by the time you start your next pack and go on your trip.
For example, instead of taking 8-10 weeks of active pills as recommended by your doctor, try taking 4-5 weeks of active pills, and then 1 week of inactive pills. You will get your period and have enough time to immerse (and restart the next set of active pills) before your trip. At that point you can revert to the usual schedule of 3 weeks active/1 week inactive pills.
2) It can be unsettling to “ignore” stains that you know are clearly blood. However, the actual Torah definition of
niddah is a flow of blood, or blood accompanied by
hargashah. The Rabbis added on to these laws the stringencies of
stains and when doing so included built-in leniencies so as not to overburden women and constantly cause them to be rendered
niddah. Therefore, you can and should take advantage of these leniencies, and take precautions against becoming
niddah from staining by wearing colored underwear or
disposable pantyliners and waiting a few seconds (ideally 15 seconds) after urinating before
wiping.
If at any point the staining becomes a flow, you should consider yourself
niddah. While it can be difficult to distinguish between heavy staining and a light flow, one way to tell is if you need to use a pad (as opposed to a light pantyliner) to contain the bleeding. If that is the case, you can assume you are experiencing a flow. Lighter than that would be staining. Please see our page on
stains for more detailed discussion.
3) There are different positions about how to observe
vesatot while using hormonal contraception. We follow the view that you would
only observe
vesatot based on the pills, and do not observe any other
vesatot. Therefore, until you stop taking the active pills you would not observe any
onot nor perform any
bedikot. Please see
here for a more detailed discussion.
Please feel free to get back to us with any further questions.
This response was updated on 15 February, 2024.
