Asides

Sex after Childbirth

By Natural Childbirth ⋅  Email ⋅  Print ⋅

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A recent article in Psychology Today looked at how a couple’s sexual relationship is affected following childbirth. Like many articles before it, it primarily examined in the difference in attitudes following cesarean births vs vaginal births and the main focus seemed to be on the pelvic floor. On the outside, it seems to be another quiet push for cesareans but the reality is that it missed a huge component of the psychology of childbirth. Women are routinely assaulted, victimized, objectified, yelled at, ignored, violated and talked down to in childbirth while the husband or partner stands by silently, ignoring his instincts and letting it all happen. Women are no longer human beings during the second stage of labor, and are reduced to nothing more than a vagina, while every person on the hospital floor comes in to touch, manhandle and stare at her most sacred space. Why can’t we see a study comparing sexual satisfaction after hospital births vs. homebirths, where this intimate and special time is kept private, mom isn’t physically violated and the mother and partner do not lose their dignity in the process. Men in third world countries routinely ostracize their wives after they have been raped, and women around the world cannot bear to be touched by their partners after being raped, is this really that different? Learn more at PsychologyToday.com

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