DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD
Your present lack of sexual drive is normal and had its origins in the physical changes that started as soon as you conceived.
During the first three months, a woman’s libido is usually, but not always, reduced. Nearly all women have some nausea and feeling sick is not conducive to either a relaxed or frenzied sex life. Urinary problems, often including urinary tract infections, are common and intercourse may make these worse or perpetuate the symptoms. The hormonal surge of pregnancy is to monthly PMS what a Caribbean hurricane is to a Norfolk gale. It is bad enough that the breasts, instead of being an erotic zone, may be so painful that someone touching them, instead of turning the woman on, turns her off. The mood comes and goes; some women are so excited by pregnancy that all is well and they are elated, others are apprehensive and volatile.
In the second three months of pregnancy most women not only become accustomed to the hormonal changes and to the idea of motherhood but many find a great surge in sexual interest. This is stimulated by changes in the pelvic circulation that lead to engorge- ment of the genitalia that may increase sexual response.
In the last three months many women feel ungainly and unattractive. It is not surprising that sex is not foremost in their minds and that they deflect their husband’s advances with assurances that all will return to normal after the baby is born.
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How little do they know. The dynamics of the family have changed for ever. A close partnership of two has become a potentially difficult triangle in which the woman, so recently only a wife, is now both a wife and a mother. Her all- engrossing love for her child and her worries about it have to be concealed if she is not to exclude her husband.
Despite her desire to express the love she feels for her husband, you, like most women, feel too tired, exhausted and preoccupied to make love. You may have expected your body to have returned immediately to its old shape, but this can take months.
Although many women derive huge pleasure from breast-feeding, one hormone, called prolactin, is maintained at a high level while you are lactating. And high levels of prolactin depress ovarian function and reduce libido.
It is said that having a baby is nature’s method of birth control. In fact, it is regular breast-feeding, at under four-hour intervals, that maintains prolactin levels and reduces libido rather than the actual birth. The birth, too, may have caused some scarring that can be tender to touch. Lubrication is also reduced, another feature of high prolactin levels.
After eight months you will soon be finding that your libido is stirring. When you re-start sexual relations, initially find ways of making love, short of penetration, if that remains a step too far. Once sex play is established, extend it to penetrative sex, but use plenty of lubricant and support your bottom on pillows so that your pelvis is raised and your back is less likely to suffer. If you are breast-feeding, warn your husband if fondling is uncomfortable.
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You should also forewarn him that for a time changes to your vagina may have made painful some of the actions that have been part of your ritual since you married.
SUZI GODSON
Most pregnancy literature advises pregnant women to wait until six weeks after the birth of their baby to resume sexual intercourse. Which is amusing really. Because although most new parents will, out of a subconscious sense of duty to the abstract concept of siblings, check that everything down below is still functioning, the words post-natal and sex just don’t belong together. More couples than are willing to admit it find that sex drops right off the radar for six to 12 months after the birth.
And here’s why. Total exhaustion is so debilitating that it is used as a form of torture in less civilised societies. Breast-feeding plays havoc with hormones and floods women with oxytocin, a chemical that predisposes them to knitting, rather than shaking, their booties. It also creates an exclusive intimate bond between mum and baby that can be intimidating for dad. On top of that there is the issue of body image; 15lb of baby weight that refuses to shift can strangle the most robust libido. Even the pneumatic glamour model Jordan admits that since the birth of Junior Andre, she and Peter have been too knackered and busy to make out with each other.
Babies are a 24/7 commitment and it’s easy to forget about yourself and your relationship. Not surprisingly, this can take its toll on you, your partner and your sex life. Recent research from John Gottmann, who is best known for his work on marital stability and divorce prediction, indicates that 40 to 70 per cent of couples experience “stress, profound conflict and drops in marital satisfaction” after the birth. He is trying to develop a programme for expectant parents to help them to understand the changes they will experience as they become parents, and to discover ways to make the transition with greater ease and success.
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Gottmann, a mathematician, is also investigating the significance of sex in relationships. He says: “We have no clue about how sex works in relationships, how it fits into everyday interaction, what good sex really is like, what great sex really is, what everyday sex is, how it all works or fails. We have no descriptive data.”
Sexual expectations — the sense that you ought to be having sex when you are not — can be demoralising. Yet although obligation is deeply unsexy, it is true that the longer you leave your love life on ice, the harder it is to get it back on track. Unless you create baby-free space, you and your husband will not have the energy, the opportunity or the inclination to resume your sex life. In the short term, a willing relative might give you a night off, so you could check in to a hotel. But you need to establish long-term solutions and that means getting your baby into a routine so that you can plan a regular sex life (even if it is confined to baby’s Saturday or Sunday morning nap).
Solving Children’s Sleep Problems (Beckett Karlson Ltd, £12.99), by Lyn Quine, professor of health psychology at the University of Kent at Canterbury, offers advice on sleep routines. If that doesn’t help, try Night Nannies (www.night-nannies.com). For the price of a room at the Ritz, a specialist sleep coach comes to your home and helps your baby to sleep through the night. Alternatively, for the price of a room at Travelodge, the Mill Pond sleep clinic (www.mill-pond.co.uk) will give you two consultations, phone support for as long as you need it and an all-day programme geared towards a happier bedtime. For everyone.