Making love again after pregnancy
You probably won't feel like making love in the first days, or even weeks, after giving birth. The sheer physical exhaustion of labour and the drastic changes in your hormone levels after delivery combine to lessen sexual desire.
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A lack of interest in sex at first is both natural and desirable, because your body needs time to recover from pregnancy and childbirth, and you need time to adjust to your new baby. Talk to your partner - you'll probably find he's totally sympathetic and understanding.
Your partner
Your partner's libido may also be affected by the arrival of your baby; it's not uncommon for a new father to feel a lack of desire and even to lose his ability to maintain an erection. He might also find it difficult to adjust to his and your dual, sometimes contradictory, roles as parents and lovers. It'll help if you're both aware that there may be such problems and you don't take them personally. The best solution is to be philosophical and open about these things, and discuss them lovingly and sympathetically. This will stop them developing into long-term difficulties.
When to start making love again?
Couples differ greatly as to when they feel like starting to make love again after the birth of a child. Your feelings may even differ from one pregnancy to another.
Many couples also worry about when it's physically safe for intercourse to take place. If you or your partner are at all unsure about whether it's safe to make love again, talk to your doctor or obstetrician. If you're both happy about it, and there's no medical objection, you can start making love again as soon as you feel the desire to. This can be a good idea for a number of reasons. For one thing, lovemaking helps strengthen your relationship at what can be a difficult time. Also, the hormones that are released during sexual activity cause contractions of your uterus, which help it to return to its pre-pregnant state.
Lack of desire
Don't worry about loss of libido - it's natural after childbirth. But there are some things that can affect both your desire for and your enjoyment of postnatal sex. Apart from any lingering discomfort you might feel, it's quite common to feel unattractive at first, and this can make you shy away from sex or think negatively. If your still-bulging tummy is making you feel unsexy, try to start doing some exercises to get back into shape. Exercise will help your self-esteem, and pelvic floor exercises will help to reduce the slackness of your vagina.
You may also have anxieties and distractions that lessen your sexual desire or enjoyment. Perhaps you're afraid about getting pregnant again or worried about coping with birth control again? Even your baby can affect your enjoyment of lovemaking - it can be hard to adjust to this new presence in the house. You may not feel as free as you did before or as able to abandon yourself, and it may be harder to relax and enjoy lovemaking because you half expect your baby to cry for attention at any time. You may also find that you get so absorbed with your baby that you have little need for other emotional ties or physical contact - even with your partner. Even your sexual responses may become focused on your baby because oxytocin, the hormone that's produced during breastfeeding, is sexually stimulating. During a feed a woman can be stimulated up to and even including orgasm.
Enjoying making love again
It can take a while for you both to get back to your previous level of sexual interest. You may need to spend more time on fondling, kissing, and other foreplay before you become sexually aroused. For the first few times you make love, it's best to avoid penile penetration and stick to gentle oral or manual sex. And because an episiotomy site can be surprisingly painful during intercourse and may take months to become totally pain-free, please be honest with your partner and tell him if sex causes you discomfort or pain. Getting him to touch your scar will help him to understand how you feel and be sympathetic. Having a warm bath before lovemaking and using a water-soluble vaginal lubricant or saliva can be a great help.
Whether or not you've had an episiotomy, you'll probably need extra lubrication. Until your hormone levels are back to normal, your vagina won't lubricate itself as quickly as in pre-birth days, no matter how much foreplay you have. Avoid non-water-soluble lubricants such as petroleum jelly because they can prevent air from reaching the lining of your vagina and this can encourage the growth of harmful bacteria.
When you start making love again, you may well find that man-on-top positions are uncomfortable. Experiment with other positions - side-by-side positions are especially good to try if you're suffering from a sore episiotomy site. Whichever positions you use, be patient, don't do too much at first, and build up your sexual activity again gradually.
Birth control after pregnancy
When you want to start making love again, you'll need to decide on what form of contraception to use. Ovulation could start at any time, particularly if you are bottlefeeding.
If you start making love before your periods have come back, don't assume that you won't get pregnant because you're not menstruating. You'll ovulate two weeks before your first period, so if you put off using contraception until after that, you may have waited too long. Even when you're breastfeeding your baby, and your periods won't start until you wean her, you may still ovulate so you could get pregnant.
Posted 30.06.2010
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