After going through childbirth many women find that they don’t feel the need or urge to have sex for a little while. Perhaps this is not surprising, after all the act of giving birth and indeed the nine months of pregnancy have meant drastic changes in the body and a new mother may still be getting used to her body. Of course once there is an awkwardness surrounding sex for a couple after the birth of the baby this can only serve to make the matter more complex. But a new study shedding more light on the issue has revealed some of the facts behind sex after childbirth.
Some women go for a long time without wanting to have sex while for others the process is a fairly quick and simple one. There is no right answer; it is just whatever feels right for you. But this new research has shown that much of the desire to have sex for women after childbirth comes not from physical factors, but from psychological ones. Indeed it seems that factors such as spousal support and the new baby’s sleeping habits play a far more integral role in the sex life of new parents than physical issues such as birth trauma. Doctors tend to recommend a sex-week waiting period before having sex after childbirth due to the damaging nature of giving birth, but many women find that feelings of sexual desire return long before then.
“One interesting thing is that women performed oral sex on their partners and engaged in masturbation earlier than they received oral sex or engaged in intercourse,” said Sari van Anders, who is a behavioural endocrinologist at the University of Michigan and one of the key figures in the study. “People have frequently assumed that women just aren’t interested in sexuality early in the postpartum period and that the sexual activity they do engage in is for the sake of their partners, but the rates of masturbation suggest that many women are feeling sexual”. This definitely suggests that it is not so much an issue of women not wanting to have sex, but rather than they do want to, but are following the advice of their doctor.
We all know that the period straight after having a baby can be very stressful and difficult for parents. This specifically includes periods of very little sleep which can have a very series knock-on effect on the lifestyle of the parents and can cause other problems. Lack of sleep is known to lead to irritability and a number of other problems. This is thought to be one of the key factor in why couples don’t have sex rather than being anything to do with the women not wanting to have sex – with the baby waking so often and needing constant attention it can be very difficult to find the time to be intimate. But many people instead blame this lack of intimacy on the actual effects of childbirth itself, but this is generally not the case.
Interestingly there was still some suggestion in the study that many women feel the need to resume sexual activity early to benefit their partners’ needs and desires. But the women’s level of social support and physical and psychological experiences during childbirth were other major factors in determining how long they took to resume sexual activity. Previously it had been thought that physical problems such as fatigue and trauma might be the major factors in determining when women want to have sex again, but it appears that this is not actually the case.
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