A Lifetime Companion to the Laws of Jewish Family Life, Part Three; The Life Cycle, Chapter 4; Childbirth/מדריך להלכות טהרת המשפחה·חלק ג·פרק ד

1Status of yoledet

3A vaginal delivery renders a woman a yoledet, a status which in practice is identical to niddah. This is true for a live birth, and also for a stillbirth or a miscarriage. A woman would become a yoledet even in the very unlikely circumstance that she experienced no bleeding at all.

4From when in labor does the yoledet status begin?

6“It is impossible that the uterus opened without blood.”

8Cessation of the yoledet status

9The procedure for exiting the yoledet status is the same as that for exiting niddah. One waits a minimum of five days from the onset of bleeding, performs a hefsek taharah, counts seven blood-free days, and immerses in the mikveh.

10The bleeding that follows childbirth (lochia) generally continues for a number of weeks. The median duration is 28 days; however, two or even three months of bleeding is normal. It is also normal for bleeding to stop completely and then start again. Therefore, in practice, it may take a number of attempts over several months for a woman to get to the mikveh following childbirth.

11During this process, it is especially important to ask halachic questions. Certain colors may be permissible, and a rabbi may instruct a woman to perform fewer bedikot or to omit the moch dachuk during the time her body is recovering from childbirth. If bleeding continues for more than eight weeks, she should have a gynecological exam to confirm that the bleeding is still uterine and not vaginal.

12The yoledet status: biblical and rabbinic law

13According to biblical law, a woman following childbirth could immerse in the mikveh on the night of the seventh day (i.e., the beginning of the eighth day) following the birth of a boy, or on the night of the fourteenth day (i.e., the beginning of the fifteenth day) following the birth of a girl, regardless of whether her bleeding had stopped.

15Today, however, all women are considered to have entered childbirth in a status of zavah, and thus must count seven blood-free days before going to the mikveh. These seven days can be counted as soon as all bleeding has ceased, assuming the five day minimum has passed. In the very unlikely event that a woman has minimal bleeding, she cannot immerse in the mikveh until twelve days after the birth of a boy or fourteen days after the birth of a girl. (If she was already niddah when she went into labor, counting the five day minimum from the onset of niddah, she could immerse as early as seven days after the birth of a boy.) As we have seen, in reality it is generally a much longer period, as bleeding generally continues for a number of weeks.

17By biblical law, before it became accepted that all women in childbirth have the status of zavah, and before the five-day minimum was enacted, a woman could immerse in the mikveh as soon as the seven-day (boy) or fourteen-day (girl) time frame had passed – even if she continued to bleed. Any bleeding in the following thirty-three days for a boy and sixty-six days for a girl was considered dam tohar, which rendered her unfit to bring sacrifices in the Temple, but did not forbid relations with her husband. By now, the custom has been accepted by all communities that any uterine bleeding during this period renders her a niddah.

18Attendance of husband at delivery

20If the husband does attend:

211. The couple should request that a mirror NOT be placed in front of the woman to allow direct visualization by the husband of the exiting child.

222. The couple should request that the wife be kept as covered as possible or that a screen be placed between her upper and lower body. (This is done routinely for cesarean deliveries and thus is not difficult to arrange.)

233. The husband should not touch his wife unless there is no one else to help her.

24Cesarean section

26The rules of yoledet do not apply to birth by cesarean section. Thus, if a woman who underwent a cesarean had no bleeding via the vagina (an extraordinarily rare occurrence) she would be neither a niddah, zavah, or a yoledet and would not have to go to the mikveh after childbirth. In reality, most women who have a cesarean continue to have bleeding via the vagina from the uterus as they shed the remains of the uterine lining from pregnancy. Therefore the laws of niddah would apply to them. However, they can begin to count seven clean days as soon as the bleeding has ceased (after a minimum of 4 or 5 days) and do not have to wait 14 days before immersion if a girl was born.

27Miscarriage