Niddah 4:5-6

Niddah 4:5

Rabbi Meir says that we count a difficult labor (in the previous mishna) even from 40 or 50 days before delivery. Rabbi Yehuda says the ninth month is sufficient. Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Shimon say no more than two weeks before delivery.

Niddah 4:6

If a woman is experiencing difficult labor during the eighty days following the birth of a girl, any blood she sees is ritually clean until the baby emerges, though Rabbi Eliezer rules it unclean. The Sages said to Rabbi Eliezer, “If halacha is stringent about blood without pain and lenient about the blood of a difficult labor, doesn’t it follow that when halacha is lenient about blood without pain it should also be lenient about the blood of a difficult labor?” Rabbi Eliezer responded, “It’s suffient for something to be like the thing from which it’s inferred (in a kal v’chomer/argument a fortiori). How is the law lenient for her? Vis-à-vis zivah impurity. But here we’re talking about niddah impurity.”