Sex after childbirth and pregnancy

There’s no launch date for sex after pregnancy; the return of sexual desire after giving birth will happen at different paces for different people. It depends on numerous factors, both emotional and purely physical – such as the person who gave birth healing after the process. Your sex life before or during pregnancy won’t necessarily have anything to do with what it will be like after the baby is born, because so many different factors are at play, not least of which is how complicated the birth was, and how long it takes to heal and recover. It can be frustrating to not know what your partner is thinking, so one hot tip is to talk to each other early on when you start having these thoughts to avoid misunderstandings and keep sex from becoming a charged subject.

When can you have sex again after giving birth?

After the labour, your body will need to heal and recover. After a vaginal delivery, your genitals will be swollen and might feel tender and irritated if there was tearing. Your body might feel completely exhausted for quite some time afterwards. A C-section will also affect your sex life and it’s common to have some discomfort in your abdomen for a few months after giving birth.

As long as the person who gave birth is still having discharge, avoid penetrative sex (or use a condom) because there is increased risk of infection. If you had a C-section, you should also go very easy on yourself when it comes to any and all exertion in the first month. Thereafter, as long as it feels okay, sex won’t do your body any harm. But– and this is very important – sex is something you do because it feels good. It should not hurt! Your body and pelvic area may feel more tense than usual, but don’t think you have to tough it out or that it’s normal to have pain at first; that defeats the whole purpose of sex. In that case, it would be better to wait a bit longer and if you’re wondering at all whether everything is fully healed, then it’s important to schedule an exam with your care provider. If you’re breastfeeding, the mucous membranes of your vagina are likely to be dry due to lack of oestrogen. If so, try using lube and see if it helps.

How long it takes to recover physically depends on many different factors, especially how complicated the birth was, and whether or not you have stitches if you delivered vaginally. It can often take months before your body feels a bit more like it did before giving birth. The muscles in your vagina will recover, but it’s also important to strengthen your pelvic floor, and perhaps to learn how to relax it, if it’s too tense.

Little or no sex drive after the baby is born

Right after giving birth, your body is full of hormones, which can impact sexual desire after pregnancy and childbirth. Hormones usually return to normal levels about six months after childbirth, but there are other factors at play when it comes to desire, not least of which are sleep deprivation and a baby who frequently wakes up or makes noise – something that naturally affects all parents. In other words, you’re facing a true cocktail of sexual saboteurs as a couple right now, and it can be nice to remember: that’s completely normal. Very few people have a flourishing, or even active sex life as new parents. But it will get better with time. And you can still have an intimate relationship without having to have sex all the time. It’s possible that once the pressure or stress to have sex reduces, your drive will actually come back. If not, but you wish it would, it may be helpful to remove your partner from the equation for a little while and cultivate sexual desire by yourself first. Explore your turn-ons and become reacquainted; let that grow in peace and quiet for the purposes of your own pleasure – not to have a sex drive for someone else’s benefit. That might help to spark your sex life with your partner again.

Sometimes a sex drive imbalance can emerge in a relationship, where one person wants more sex and the other wants less. In that case, you need to talk honestly with each other about your thoughts and feelings, because otherwise, you’ll risk misunderstandings, with one partner feeling rejected and the other feeling pressured. You can read more about this in the article on relationships while you have young children.

Breastfeeding as contraception

If you don’t breastfeed, then your period – and thus the chance of getting pregnant again – can return as soon as weeks after giving birth. It may take longer, however, because like so much else when it comes to hormones, this also varies from one person to the next. If you’re solely breastfeeding and your baby is under six months, then you have a pretty reliable form of birth control – but of course, you can never be completely safe. And of course, ovulation starts before menstruation, so it isn’t always easy to know exactly when you’re fertile again. Your doctor or midwife will likely bring up contraception at your postnatal checkup, but of course you can always get in touch any time with questions.

Please note that all information above is based on Swedish recommendations.