For the source text click/tap here: Chullin 71
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The Mishnah on our daf turns its attention to a woman whose fetus dies in utero and the questions of ritual defilement that stem from that situation. According to the Mishnah, if the midwife reached into the womb and touched the dead fetus, she contracts ritual defilement of contact with the dead; the mother remains ritually pure until the fetus is delivered.
The Gemara explains that on a Torah level the dead fetus does not defile as long as it has not been delivered since this is a situation of tumah belu’ah – “swallowed defilement” – which does not ritually defile. The defilement contracted by the midwife is a rabbinic decree, lest the fetus’ head is delivered – which determines that the fetus defiles – and the midwife believes that it has not yet attained that status.
We explore the notion of postmortem fetal survival known as coffin deaths in history…