Babies Tale

The longer a couple has been together before having a baby, the harder it may be to adjust to having a new baby. Research shows that the most stressful and difficult time in a marriage is after the birth of the first baby. There’s no doubt that the birth of a baby can rock a marriage. The couple suddenly has much less time for one another and sex often suffers.

Having a baby can completely change the nature of a couple’s relationship. “Before we had the baby we used to go out a lot, see friends, we were always doing something. Suddenly we were both at home, and our worlds completely diverged. He was still out there, doing things, meeting people, and when he came home all I had to report on was whether the baby had been particularly fretful or some possible problem with his health.”

Sex, too, suffers in the weeks and often months after the birth.

Studies have shown that the majority of mothers do not have sexual intercourse with their partners till at least six weeks after the birth of the baby. One study showed that more than half the women said they were less interested in sex three months after the birth than before pregnancy, and by a year after the birth 57% of women were still not having sex as often as before.

The delay in resuming sex after the birth is partly for medical reasons. Stitches have to heal, bruising has to clear up, there is a possible risk of infection, and the mother often still has lochia, or post-childbirth bleeding. Contraception, too, is an issue. A cap or IUD (intrauterine device) cannot be fitted until six weeks after the birth. The Pill is not advised because it may reduce the milk supply, and hormones are passed through in the breast milk to the baby. (The mini-pill does not affect the milk supply and there is no evidence the hormones harm the baby. However, the mini-pill has not been in use long enough for a generation to grow up and have children themselves, so most mothers are wary of taking this version of the Pill while breast-feeding.) Many women-and their partners-see the six-week check as an “all clear” to resume sexual relations if all is well.

Most mothers, however, find that their libido is altered by becoming a mother and that they do not want to have sex as often as before or even at all. This may be partly physiological, a result of the hormone changes following pregnancy and during breastfeeding. It may be partly psychological, and it may also be partly due to exhaustion.

Breast-feeding in particular seems to have an effect on libido.

While nursing her baby, the mother has a high level of a hormone, prolactin, in her body, which helps suppress ovulation. This seems to dampen libido and may also lead to a decrease in vaginal lubrication. This may be nature’s way of making sure the mother doesn’t get pregnant again too soon and that the baby isn’t therefore displaced from the breast. In hunter-gatherer societies, the oldest kind of social group, it is typical for the baby to be weaned from the breast when the mother conceives again. This isn’t usually until the first child is three or four years old, partly because frequent breast-feeding acts as a contraceptive, but also because sexual intercourse is taboo when the mother is nursing a young baby. In such cultures breast milk is an important source of protein for the young child. In some regions of Africa, the word for some kinds of malnutrition means “baby displaced too soon from the breast.”

Some mothers say sex and breast-feeding don’t mix: “I would have this tiny, delicate baby at my breast, stroking me with his little hand, and then I’d put him down and this big hairy male hand would grab me.” Some women find they do not like having their breasts touched by their partner while breast-feeding: “I felt my breasts were for my baby. If my husband touched them they’d start leaking milk and, because I wasn’t the world’s greatest milk producer, I’d worry about the milk that was going to waste. I also used to leak milk when I had an orgasm, so we always had to have sex just after I’d fed the baby.”

Other mothers find they enjoy the physicality of breastfeeding and enjoy sharing it with their partner: “I had plenty of milk-too much, in fact-so sometimes I’d let Nick have a taste. It was also useful sometimes-I’d get him to suck a little to get the milk to let down when I wanted to express some, or if I got overfull and engorged.”

Psychological reasons why the mother may not want sex have to do with her image of her body and of motherhood. This may especially be the case if a mother has had a bad labor. “I felt as if I had been raped. I had been taken over, manhandled by doctors, and awful things had been done to the most intimate parts of my body. Aside from all the stitches, inside and out, which got infected and took weeks to heal, I felt traumatized. I couldn’t bear to be touched for months afterwards.”

Others feel they have lost some of their sexual attractiveness.

This may be truer of older mothers, who may find that the stresses of pregnancy and birth take a heavier toll on their body and that it takes longer to get fit again. “I had put on weight and my tummy was just a flabby, empty bag. My breasts had changed shape and I just didn’t feel that I could be attractive to my husband.”

Again, other mothers, especially those who have enjoyed a good birth experience, find the opposite. “I felt I was really a woman now-my breasts were large and full of milk. I went back to my original weight very soon after the birth, and I felt really sexy and fulfilled. Maybe that was also because my partner made it clear that he found me very exciting and sexy as a mother.”

Many partners do not understand if the woman has lost interest in sex. Many, especially if they have not had sex at all in the late months of pregnancy and in the weeks after the baby is born, do not see why, after a couple of months, their sex life should not get back to normal. This can certainly strain the relationship. The important thing is to talk about it and get it out in the open, rather than bottling up feelings.

Some mothers find that, although they may not feel like having sex at first, it is very important for their partner. So they make the effort:

“I never felt like making love, with a new baby and a demanding toddler on my hands all day. But every so often I would take a deep breath and just do it. And then I always thought, ‘This is really nice-why don’t we do it more often?’”

Some women find that the more they make love, the more they feel like making love, while the longer they abstain, the less they feel like having sex. In other women, not feeling like making love is a symptom of depression. It expresses a lack of positive feelings for themselves as a mother.

“It took months for me to realize that my lack of interest in sex was really a symptom of postnatal depression. I felt so uninteresting, so ugly and so low in self-esteem that I didn’t understand why anyone would want to make love to me.”

Partners need to be sympathetic, understanding and supportive at this time, and most are. But there are also some who, not finding sex inside the marriage, look for it elsewhere. If the infidelity is discovered, the wife can be shocked and feel betrayed, though many marriages survive an infidelity. Fear their husbands may go elsewhere if they don’t provide at least a minimum of sex is one reason many women say they have sex after childbirth: “It wasn’t for me. I could take it or leave it, and would have been happier to leave it. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, and I didn’t want him to get so desperate he’d start looking elsewhere.”

Perhaps the best solution is for husbands to be actively involved in childcare, getting up in the night, and so on. Then they may also feel too exhausted to want sex.

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