Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
Translated by Shaykh Hamza Karamali, SunniPath Academy Teacher
A woman who is delivering twins sees blood after delivering one of the two babies but has not yet delivered the second. She is in the month of Ramadan: must she fast or must she not because of post-natal bleeding?
As long as one child is still in the womb, she is not legally considered to be in a state of post-natal bleeding because the legal definition of this state requires that the womb be completely emptied.
However, the most correct position in our school is that a pregnant woman can, in fact, menstruate. So in this case, the blood that the mother sees between the birth of the twins is considered menstruation if it meets the conditions of menstruation. These conditions are that (1) the bleeding must last at least a day and a night (24 hours) and (2) that there be at least 15 days of purity between this blood at the period that she had before it. If these two conditions are met, then the blood that she sees is considered menstruation and it is not obligatory fot her to fast or pray. In fact, it would be forbidden for her to pray or fast, because neither may be performed by a menstruating woman.