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Still spotting ten weeks postpartum

31 October, 2017
Question:

I’m 10 weeks post partum and still niddah. I’ve been light spotting on and off and can’t manage to get a clean bedika for more than a day.
Are there any halachic loopholes around this?
I need a hug from my husband, it’s been a long time….


Answer:

Mazal tov on the birth of your baby!

We’re sorry to hear of your difficulty in becoming tehorah. Our video on Niddah in the Postpartum Period offers some insights on getting through this challenging time of extended physical separation.

Postpartum bleeding tends to come and go in waves, so spotting such as you describe is fairly common. It is often possible to count the clean days and immerse in the mikveh even while you are spotting. We hope the following steps will help you get to mikveh soon:

  • Please have any bedikah cloths that are at all questionable evaluated rather than assuming that your clean days have been invalidated. A bedikah need not be completely clear. (If you’d like our help finding an appropriate halachic address for evaluating bedikah cloths, please write back with your location).
  • Unlike on bedikah cloths, stains of any color on a white undergarment may be disregarded if they are smaller in size than a gris (roughly, the area of the Israeli shekel or American dime).  It is fully permissible to change underwear more frequently than usual in order to prevent larger stains from accumulating and disrupting your clean days.
  • In your circumstances, you may reduce the number of bedikot performed this cycle to the hefsek taharah and one each on days one, seven, and an intermediate day.

 

If these measures do not help you complete the clean days successfully, please don’t hesitate to get back to us or a halachic authority so that we can explore further possibilities.

B’hatzlacha!

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