Both parents experience changes in sexual desire after childbirth

Both parents experience shifts in sexuality after a child is born, a new study has revealed.

The research by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor found that these shifts are often unrelated to biological or medical factors pertaining to childbirth.

Research on postpartum sexuality has typically focused on female reproductive biology in birth mothers- for example, how hormonal changes that accompany pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding affect sexual desire, or how birth-related interventions affect sexual activity.

Sari van Anders, PhD, and her colleagues designed a study to examine postpartum sexuality as a social and relational process, focusing on co-parents.

A total of 114 partners -95 men, 18 women, 1 unspecified- of postpartum women completed an online questionnaire about their sexuality during the three months following their youngest child's birth. Attention was paid to physical, social, psychological, and relational experiences.

The changes that they experienced were linked to relational and social processes, not just biological or medical factors.

In fact, low desire in partners was largely influenced by factors related to caring for a new baby-such as fatigue and stress-rather than by factors related to the birth and/or birth mother, as more typically presumed.

The study is published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.