Fasting Dispensation for Pregnant Women

Question:

I am 4 months pregnant with my first baby and would like to fast Ramadan this year but my husband doesn't want me to as the chemical imbalance caused by fasting may harm the baby especially because the days will be long this year. Is this true? What evidence is in the Quran tells me if I can or cannot fast? If I cannot fast, what should I do? I don't know 60 poor people to feed.

Answer:

If you are pregnant and there is a reasonable ground to fear that fasting may adversely affect your child, then you should skip fasting. By doing so you are not compromising your religious duties; you are simply accepting the gift of Allah, for as the Prophet said, “Allah loves that His servants make use of His allowances even as He loves them to comply with His strict orders.” The permission to skip fasting for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding has been clearly inferred by scholars from the relevant verses in the Qur’an.

Therefore, you are allowed to skip fasting in order to safeguard the health of your child; if you do so, you should make up for the days you have missed later. You need not necessarily give fidyah, as long as you intend to make up for them. Fidyah is however essential if you fear that you will not be able to make up for them. As for fidyah in this case, I must correct you, it does not entail feeding sixty people; rather it is to feed a single poor person for every day of fast you miss; so you need to feed twenty nine or thirty poor people, depending on the number of the days of Ramadan in a specific year. 

Source: islam.ca