Fasting while pregnant or breastfeeding: qada, fidya, or both?
First, the part that gets confused: pregnancy and nursing are not menstruation. Prayer continues as normal. Only fasting is at issue — and there the disagreement is real, with three defensible positions.
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This page is study material. It does not replace a ruling from a qualified scholar who knows your situation. The schools differ, and so do circumstances — take specific questions to a scholar in your own community.
When you may break the fast
A pregnant or nursing mother may break her fast if fasting would harm her or the child. The evidence:
Allah has relieved the traveller of half the prayer, and He has relieved the pregnant woman and the nursing mother of the fast.
— Sunan Abi Dawud 2408; Jami‘ at-Tirmidhi 715
Whether harm is genuinely expected is not settled by how you feel about it. A doctor’s assessment is part of the ruling here: dehydration risk, gestational diabetes, falling milk supply, insufficient weight gain. If a physician advises against fasting, the concession applies.
What is owed afterwards: three positions
This is the disputed part. All three positions have a chain of scholarship behind them and living adherents:
| Position | What it requires | Held by |
|---|---|---|
| Qada only | Make up the days, like someone who was ill. No fidya. | Hanafi school; also the Shafi‘i and Hanbali position where she feared for herself |
| Qada + fidya | Make up the days and feed one poor person per missed day | Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools where she feared for the child alone |
| Fidya only | No make-up fasts; feed one poor person per day | Ibn Abbas and Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them), followed by some contemporary scholars |
The third rests on Ibn Abbas’s reading of "and upon those who are able to fast, a ransom of feeding a poor person" (al-Baqarah 2:184) — he held that the verse remains in force for pregnant and nursing women.
Within the majority schools, the distinction usually drawn is:
- Fear for her own body → make up the fasts, as an ill person would
- Fear for the child → the Shafi‘i and Hanbali schools add fidya
- Fear for both → handled differently across the schools; ask locally
How fidya is calculated
One poor person fed for each missed day. The measure is normally reckoned in the local staple, and most local fatwa bodies publish a cash equivalent. It may be given day by day or settled in one payment.
Back-to-back pregnancies and no window to make up
Consecutive pregnancies and nursing, with no gap in which to fast, is an ordinary situation rather than an edge case. Most scholars hold that as long as the delay is not by choice, no additional fidya is incurred for the delay — the fasts are made up when it becomes possible. Where the situation is not going to change for years, local fatwa bodies generally give guidance on settling with fidya.
Prayer is untouched
Repeating it because it is the most common misunderstanding: pregnancy, nursing, morning sickness and bed rest do not lift prayer. If standing is not possible, she prays sitting; if sitting is not possible, lying down with gestures. Imran ibn Husayn asked, and was told:
Pray standing; if you cannot, then sitting; and if you cannot, then on your side.
— Sahih al-Bukhari 1117
Rulings for the period after birth are on Nifas: postpartum bleeding.
Compiled from Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and the standard manuals of the four schools. If you find an error in how something is stated here, please write in — these pages are revised as corrections come.