How long is a piece of string?

The answer to this question depends on two things. Firstly what the birth was like and secondly how you and your partner feel. Sex can take place as soon or as far in the future as you want but the following are some general guidelines or things to keep in mind;

• You may be too tired or emotional to contemplate sex for a few weeks. Your hormones will be racing so you will have a rollercoaster ride of elation, worry and sadness which you can’t control. You may not feel sexy!
• You will also be in constant demand from your little one (day and night) so may just want to sleep when you have the chance.
• You will be discharging lochia for the first few weeks after giving birth Al the leftovers from your womb - like a heavy period) so may find sex a bit unsavoury
• Medical advice is often to wait 4 - 6 weeks before sex to give your genital tissues chance to heal
• Breasts! Quite literally. Breastfeeding (or even women who are not planning to breastfeed but whose breasts are still producing milk) will transform the vision of breasts from something sexual to something that feeds your baby. This can be a turn off for mum and dad. It can also mean that they go into overdrive and spring a milk leak when you are sexually aroused.
• Even when physically ready some women will be afraid of having sex out of fear that there will be pain or that it will not feel good due to an increased size in the vagina following child birth
• Whether the delivery was a straight forward vaginal birth, an assisted delivery, a delivery with stitches or an epesiotomy or a C-section each will need a period of recovery just like any injury
• For a new mother it can be a shock to the system to suddenly be at the beck and call of another human being 24 hours a day and in physical contact with someone so often. It can begin to feel claustrophobic after a while an more physical contact may be the last thing you need

Whatever you do do not push each other. Your sex life will eventually get back to normal but just let it do that in it’s own time.

A final reminder - despite the many reports saying that you cannot get pregnant when you have just had a child and are breast feeding this is npot true. There is always a possibility that you may get pregnant even when breastfeeding so use protection if you don’t want this to happen.