Hi!! I delivered my first baby boy (David) 30 days ago, I don't know when should I go to the Mikve again?? Do I need to say a special prayer?? Thanks

(answer from Chana Jenny Weisberg)

Thanks for your question, and a big mazal tov on your son's birth! According to Jewish law a woman may immerse in the ritual bath on completion of seven days after the birth of a son and the completion of fourteen days after the birth of a daughter- provided she has made a hefsek taharah (an internal check with a white cloth when bleeding stops), and counted seven spotless days.

Practically, most women find that they cannot successfully perform a hefsek tahara until at least six to eight weeks after childbirth. (This coincides with most medical advice which suggests that a woman wait until her postnatal check up- six weeks after childbirth- to resume marital relations.) If three months have passed, and a woman is still unable to achieve seven spotless days, she should consult a doctor and an Orthodox rabbi.

The ultimate Internet resource for questions connected with Mikve and the laws of family purity is the Nishmat Halachic Consultants Website, under the supervision of leading Orthodox rabbis. With special sections on pregnancy and childbirth.

The following is a general prayer for any woman to recite after immersing in the mikve. I really like it:

May it be your will, L-rd my G-d, that your Holy Presence will dwell between me and my husband. And may Your holy name yud heh will be unified through us. And You will place into our hearts a spirit of purity and holiness, and You will distance from us all bad thoughts. And you will give us a pure and perfect soul, so that we will not place our eyes on any person in the world except my eyes on my husband and my husband's eyes on me. And it will be in my eyes as though there is no good and handsome and gracious person in the world like my husband. As it says, "Listen daughter, and look and incline your ear and forget your people and your father's house." And as it says, "Because he is your lord and you will bow to him." And so I will be in my husband's eyes as though there is no beautiful, gracious, and reasonable woman in the world like me. And all his thoughts will be about me and not about any other creature in the world. As it says, "And the king desired your beauty." And as it says, "And so a man will abandon his father and mother and cling to his wife." (translated from Hebrew, original in Yiddish, taken from Tefilat haChana HaShalem).

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