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Home › Articles › Couple Time › Sex After Baby

Sex After Baby

Easing Back into Intimacy

By Felicia Hodges

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State of Mind Counts, Too
A lot changes when that squirmy little bundle of joy comes home. There always seem to be diapers to change and feedings to give, which can leave even the most energetic parents drained. But the psychological shift also takes its toll.

Suddenly you are no longer just husband and wife, but now Mom and Dad as well. You may experience a heightened sense of responsibility for your new family, which may cause your stress level to rise. Your wife's breasts, once a source of pleasure for you both, may now be your baby's dinner table -- his sole source of nourishment. This, coupled with the physical changes Mom is experiencing -- including a drop in hormone levels and a body that in no way resembles her pre-pregnancy self -- can inadvertently place sex on the back burner for a while.

"I see couples who wait well past what the doctor recommended," says psychotherapist Edie Raether of Holly Springs, N.C. , who provides sexual counseling for couples following the birth of their first child. "Part of the reason is physical, including chemical changes that the woman experiences once the baby is born. Sometimes women loose focus on [being a] woman and wife and just become mother."

Tired Rarely Equals Sexy
Although Raether acknowledges that men may take up some or even most of the daily duties in the baby's first weeks of life, it is usually Mom that handles those 2 a.m. feedings, particularly if she is nursing and Dad has to get upand go to work the next day. Her disinterest in sex could be simple fatigue. And tired people rarely feel sexually aroused, Raether says.


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