You might think that once you get pregnant, your sex drive might decrease heavily and your interest in having sex would reduce very quickly. After all there will be massive changes going through your body and it may feel normal to you that sex would be a bad idea, especially as time goes on. However, this isn’t the case for everyone. For many, getting pregnant can actually spark up the sex drive and make you interested in having sex – perhaps even more regularly than you were having it before you got pregnant. So we’ve decided to look at what’s OK during pregnancy and if anything should be avoided.
The first thing to say is that as long as your pregnancy is progressing normally, you are free to have sex as often as you like. For many women, however, sex during pregnancy is the last thing on their mind. During the early stages of the pregnancy it’s likely that your sex drive will be seriously reduced by nausea, fatigue and on-going changes in the hormones – and these will make your struggle to want to have sex. Later on, while you may well be over these issues, your desire to have sex may well be sapped by weight gain and back pain; you can’t win.
Indeed, it is often the emotional issues revolving around pregnancy that can stop you wanting to have sex, even if the physical hindrances are a problem as well. It can be worries about how the pregnancy might change your relationship, change your life or change you that take the heaviest toll. It’s also true that fears about damaging the baby or causing problems with childbirth that you could make you think that having sex might be a bad idea. But what really is true about sex during pregnancy? What will it do to you and your baby?
One of the major worries can be the sex during pregnancy will cause a miscarriage. Generally however, there is no chance that sex during pregnancy could cause a miscarriage. The vast major of miscarriages are caused by problems with the baby’s chromosomes rather than anything you could do or not do. So therefore this should not be a worry for you when you consider having sex during pregnancy. But there are other problems that you might think about too, such as the possibility that even if it doesn’t cause a miscarriage, it might damage the baby.
If you do worry that sex while pregnant could cause issues with the baby then there is good news for you. The baby is very well protected by the powerful muscles of the uterus as well as the amniotic fluid inside the uterus. There is no chance that sex can cause damage to the baby while it is in the uterus. That includes pretty much all sexual positions – it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to find a position that will put any risk around the baby’s safety.
Oral sex is safe during pregnancy, although you must be careful that your partner does not blow air into your vagina, as in very rare cases this can cause problems and complications. Anal sex is not recommended as this can be particularly uncomfortable during pregnancy and also carries the risk of spreading bacteria to the vagina. This can of course cause unforeseen problems that could be very problematic for both your health and the health of the baby, so perhaps this is the one thing that should not be done during pregnancy as it carries with it far too much risk.