Maintenance of Pregnant Divorced Women

“A pregnant divorcee must receive her maintenance until childbirth, and she has the priority to breastfeed the child for wages equal to what another woman asks. Allah, most Majestic, most Glorious, has said, ‘A mother must not be harmed because of her child or the father because of the child and the heirs also bear such responsibility.’ (2:232) He (the Imam) said, ‘A woman (from us) would raise her hand before her husband, when he wanted to go to bed with her, and say, ‘I do not want to allow you because I fear of becoming pregnant with my child.’ The man would say, ‘I do not want to go to bed with you for my fear of suspending you, thus killing my child.’ Allah prohibited a woman’s harming a man or a man’s harming a woman’ and His words ‘. . . the heirs also bear the same responsibility’ is a prohibition against harming the child or his mother in breastfeeding. She must not charge for breastfeeding for more than two complete years. If they with mutual agreement wean the child before such time, it is fine.’”