Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
I have missed many fast days due to pregnancy and post-natal bleeding. My health is now very weak. Is it permissible for me to pay the fidya [s. expiation] as a precaution before death?
If you expect and hope for recovery and sufficient strength to fast, then it is not permissible to pay the expiation (fidya). Rather, you wait for your health to return and to make up your dues.
However, if the sickness is chronic and you do not expect to recover, then it is obligatory to pay the fidya. Each day you must pay a mudd of food (rice or wheat or any grain of the like) in our school.
The Hanafis have permitted paying the value of that food in money.