If there is one question new moms ask, especially after birth, it is this question ‘what happens if you don’t wait 6 weeks after birth?’ While sex comes last on the priority list of some new moms, others wish to reunite with their husbands as soon as possible because of a lot of reasons.
Some may want to reunite sexually with their husbands for the fear of losing them to other women while some genuinely want to go back to enjoying their husbands’ warm arms.
Whatever the reason may be, wanting your husband sexually or trying to protect your marriage isn’t bad at all but your life will be at stake if you don’t take proper care of your health, especially after delivery. It’s very important that you allow your body to recover from the stress of the nine-month journey.
Although there is no specific rule that states that new moms should wait for 6 weeks after birth before having sex with their husbands, doctors and other health practitioners suggest 6 weeks because it is believed that by then, every part of your body especially your vagina would have healed completely and ready for sex. This does not apply to those that gave birth via C-section.
If you long to keep your husband sexually or enjoy his warmth, there are so many ways to do that apart from having sex. You can enjoy time out together as a couple, engage in romance, just go all out to make sure you both get satisfied but you must avoid penetration for the sake of your health.
Sex After Birth – What Happens If you Don’t Wait 6 Weeks After Birth?
Before we go into answering the question what happens if you don’t wait 6 weeks after birth, let us look into some aspect of sex after birth which you would definitely find insightful and helpful in getting back after having your baby.
This includes details that will help you understand more what you are to expect, and things you can do to keep you going at that stage. Let us answer some concerning questions about what happens if you don’t wait 6 weeks after birth before meeting with your partner, after which we look in details what actually may happen if you don’t wait six weeks.
READ ALSO: Can I Use Vaseline As Nipple Cream When Breastfeeding
After Baby is Born, How Soon Can I Have Sex?
The body doesn’t remain the same after the nine months journey, a lot of things change including your sex life.
After delivery, you might experience hormonal changes which is called post-delivery hormonal changes. This will affect your vagina, making the tissue thinner and more delicate, and your libido will be affected drastically because of breastfeeding.
After delivery, your body needs time to heal, it needs time to rejuvenate. Remember, while you were pregnant, your body never rested. It kept undergoing stretches here and there to accommodate your embryo and now that you’ve given birth, it’s only wise that you give your body a break.
When it comes to the time you should have sex after the baby is born, there’s no specific rule or timeline but most doctors and other health practitioners suggest that women wait for at least 6 weeks after birth to have sex.
This only applies to those that delivered their babies via vagina delivery without a perineal tear. Those that delivered with C-section might wait longer to enable the wound to heal completely.
Even after six weeks, you should understand that you must still take it easy on yourself. You should not go back immediately to the frequency at which you had sex before conceiving. This is because your body isn’t completely back to normal.
Why Do You Have to Wait 6 Weeks After Giving Birth?
Giving birth isn’t a child’s play. Whether you gave birth via C-section or vagina, there’s a need for you to give yourself a break. Your womb housed a whole human being for a long while, don’t you think it deserves some thumbs up?
A lot of things happen while you were pregnant, a new organ called the placenta is created to feed your baby. This placenta comes with lots of blood vessels and veins. All these take a lot from your body system.
It doesn’t even stop there, when your baby is out, this placenta is being detached, and this result in an open wound that takes time to heal.
Your uterus will shrink, your hormones will begin to get back to shape, and your muscles will go back to normal. These also take time. Now, did you see why you should wait for at least 6 weeks?
Although this wound heals by itself after some time due to the body’s ability to take care of itself, you still have to give it time before running back to the bed or inserting anything into your vagina.
Here is another reason you should wait 6 weeks after birth to have sex. After delivery, your body becomes highly susceptible to bacterial or fungal infection. Inserting anything, even your husband’s penis, can introduce harmful microbes that may lead to uterine infection, posing serious risks like hemorrhage.
You don’t need to get scared, just play by the rule and you will be fine. Enjoy your husband’s company; eat out, do some fun things together, take care of the newborn together, or even entertain yourselves with your hobbies and in no time, you will get back together sexually. It’s not that difficult.
READ ALSO: Must Hear Advice for New Moms
What Happens If you Don’t Wait 6 Weeks After Birth?
Well, it’s simple. You are going to bear the consequences!
If you don’t wait six weeks after birth to have sex, you will be doing yourself more harm than good. According to research, most new moms record complications more during the first two weeks after giving birth to their babies. This is a result of many factors including negligence on the part of the women.
Women are advised to wait 6 weeks after birth at least before having sex, but most of them fail to do so and it results in complications.
After birth, you will suffer from the pain of vagina tear, fatigue, and even vaginal dryness and if have vaginal sex before the stipulated time, that will be you calling upon postpartum complications to come your way.
How Soon Can You Have an Orgasm After Giving Birth
Research has proved that most women don’t have the drive for sex after delivery, majorly because of the hormone that is released while breastfeeding.
Most women reunite with their husbands sexually even after six weeks for the sake of maintaining the relationship and not because they had the urge.
As you know, for an orgasm to occur, a woman’s mind, body, and soul must be involved in the process, if not, there won’t be any possibility of orgasm. This happens to women who were orgasmic before conception.
What this means is that you should expect an orgasm as soon as you get involved in the lovemaking with all of you.
There’s another reason why orgasm may not occur as soon as possible. After delivery, you will run a shortage of natural lubrication which usually helps to make penetration easy. This might inflict pain on you thereby making the whole lovemaking process uninteresting.
The bottom line is, that orgasm occurs as soon as every part of your body falls in place and there’s no specific timeframe for every woman. You should expect an orgasm as soon as you are ready to get involved in the act wholly.
FAQ On What Happens If you Don’t Wait 6 Weeks After Birth
Will It Hurt Having Sex After Baby?
The first sex you will have after delivery will not be pleasurable because of pains here and there. But it isn’t something that should scare you away from the act. Medical practitioners have stated that the pains are a result of a low level of estrogen that affects how well the vaginal tissues stretches. Estrogen normally reduces after giving birth because of breastfeeding.
Then again, during the period of pregnancy, your pelvic floor has been pressured, and this can cause your muscles to strain and you will definitely feel the pain while having sex after delivery. Women that delivered their baby via vagina usually have a tear in their vagina. This tear might bring pain and discomfort to them during intercourse.
Some new moms often add some weight after childbirth and that affects the way they see themselves. This might make them anxious and further drive away the urge to go intimate with their husbands and even when they do, they experience pain as a result of tightened muscles which anxiety causes.
The pain can be dealt with if you follow some guidelines which doesn’t cost much. With these guidelines below you will get to have pain-free sex win your husband after having your baby.
How to Ease Discomfort And Pain During Sex After Giving Birth?
Sex after giving birth can be painful, but there’s nothing without remedy and this is inclusive. The steps you need to take to ease pain and discomfort during sex after giving birth include:
1. Use lubricant
Pain is experienced more during insertion or penetration due to vaginal dryness common among new moms. Lubricants are highly effective. It will help to make the penetration smooth thereby causing no pain. But ensure that you do not use a fragrance lubricant as well as petroleum jelly.
2. Practice perineal massage
Although most people don’t consider this an option, it’s very effective. If you feel pain during postpartum sex, you can massage the space between your vagina and your anus. This massage will help scar tissue mobility. If the massage is done well, the pain will reduce drastically.
3. Experiment various sex positions
Well, if the pain is too much to bear even after the use of lubricant. You have the option of changing sex positions to find out which is more comfortable for you. Remember, your body system changes as a result of pregnancy and childbirth, and so your favorite position might not be the best for you anymore. Explore other positions as your current sex position might be the cause of the pain you’re feeling.
4. Make out time for sex
The pain will not go away on the first try. Hence, you must make out time to have sex with your husband to enable your body to master the act once again. But note that even while at it, your husband must go easy on you to prevent complications. If you were having sex every day before conception, you might want to reduce the frequency until your body fully recovers.
5. Practice kegel exercise
The nine months journey and delivery stretches and even inflicts injury on your pelvic floor muscles. These are the muscles that support the uterus, the bladder, the small intestine, and the rectum.
Kegel exercises help to remedy this situation if it is done appropriately. To do this well, sit as though you are on a marble. Also, fasten your pelvic muscle (the muscle on your lower abdomen) as though you are lifting a heavy object. Do it for a few seconds and take a break before resuming. You can make this a daily activity, it will help to relax your muscles.
Will Sex Feel Different After Baby?
Sex will indeed feel different after a baby because your body is undergoing the process of recovery. During postpartum sex, you will feel pain here and there which is usually because of a perineal tear or episiotomy.
This might make it uninteresting for you even if you’re a sex lover before having your baby.
You won’t experience orgasm in your first three post-baby sexual encounters because your body’s natural lubrication, crucial for smooth and exciting sex, will be absent.
Your vagina will also not be as elastic as it used to be. All these joined together will make the sex feel different for you.
To top it all, you will experience low libido for as long as you are breastfeeding your baby.
It might even fall below your previous level before conception because of the absence or low level of estrogen. When you engage in sex when you don’t feel like it, the experience will be nothing to write home about to you and even to your husband.
If you delivered your baby via cesarean section, postpartum sex will feel differently. Your husband might forfeit certain sex positions even if you love them for the sake of your health. This happens even if the incision site has healed properly.
This might seem like a punishment to you if you really want to have sex with your husband, but patience they say is a virtue. Wait until you’re fully healed before resuming intimacy; your body needs time to recover. You don’t want to be counted among the women who had complications a few weeks after delivery.
Health is wealth. Prioritize your health and embrace your new family addition while your body recovers.
