Sex After Birth: Closeness, Desire and Being a Couple With a Baby

When sex after birth becomes a topic again varies a great deal from couple to couple. Medically, your midwife and gynaecologist can give you guidance. Everything else depends on your body, your tiredness and the two of you, and there is no right time for that.

When can you have sex after giving birth?

From a purely medical point of view, sex is often possible just a few weeks after the birth. The condition is that any birth injuries have healed. According to familienplanung.de, the German federal information site on family planning, a perineal tear or a caesarean scar takes about three weeks. Some midwives and doctors advise waiting until the postnatal bleeding (lochia) has stopped, which is roughly six weeks. That is about the length of the postnatal period, known in Germany as the Wochenbett.

Whether that applies to you is best discussed with your midwife or at the postnatal check-up with your gynaecologist. That is also the place for questions about contraception. Ovulation can happen as early as four to six weeks after the birth, later in women who are exclusively breastfeeding.

One thing matters: “possible” doesn’t mean “due”. No deadline starts after six weeks.

No timetable: why it takes longer for many

Many couples still have little or no sex months after the birth. That is common. According to familienplanung.de, a large share of women still have problems with sex three and six months after giving birth. Add to that tiredness, a daily life that is being completely reorganised, and two people who are just learning to be parents.

What weighs on couples is often less the missing sex than the inner schedule. “Surely it ought to be working again by now.” That thought puts pressure on both: on the person who gave birth, because they feel obliged, and on the other, because they don’t want to push and are still waiting.

Your body after birth

Your body has done a great deal, and it keeps changing for months. Desire often needs you to get to know it anew. How does touch feel now? Where is it pleasant, where no longer?

Hormones and breastfeeding

While you breastfeed, the hormone prolactin is raised and oestrogen is low. That can dampen desire. The lining of the vagina becomes thinner and drier, and your breasts may be more sensitive too. Many find sex more comfortable with lubricant. That is not a sign that something is wrong; it is a response to the hormones.

When sex hurts

Pain during sex after giving birth is common. Common doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. If it burns, stings at the scar or hurts deep inside, please stop and have it checked. If you push through pain, your body learns to fear sex. More on this under pain during sex.

Pelvis and pelvic floor

After pregnancy and birth, the pelvic floor is often weakened or tense. Postnatal recovery classes (Rückbildungskurse) and pelvic floor physiotherapy are there for the medical side. For desire, many find it helps to consciously feel their pelvis again: breathe deeply, move your pelvis, notice where tension sits.

Body image

Many people feel like strangers in their own body after giving birth. The belly is different, the breasts seem to belong to the baby, the skin carries marks. If you are constantly looking at your body critically, it is hard to feel desire in it. Some find it helps not to see their body as a project that has to get “back in shape”, but as their own body, which has just done something huge.

Tiredness, roles and mental load

If you get up three times a night, you are not in the mood in the evening. That much is obvious. Less visible is another burden: keeping everything in your head. When is the baby’s next check-up, who is buying nappies, has the Kita (daycare) place been applied for? There is a word for this: mental load. A head full of open tasks leaves little room for arousal.

Often one person carries more of it than the other. That is a question of how it is shared, not of willingness. If you argue about it a lot as parents, it can be worth looking at how the two of you argue.

On top of that come new roles. Many suddenly see themselves and each other mainly as mother, as father, as parent. The picture of a couple who desire each other moves into the background. It hasn’t disappeared. It just needs opportunities to become visible.

How the other person is doing

The partner has also lived through the birth, sometimes as very moving, sometimes as frightening. Many are afraid of causing pain. Some feel left out because so much revolves around the baby and breastfeeding. Others are exhausted themselves and have little desire either, but don’t dare say so.

In same-sex families and co-parenting arrangements, the balance shifts as well. The person who didn’t give birth is looking for their place, and the person who did may need a lot of distance right now and closeness at the same time. Both perspectives deserve room. Neither matters more.

Talking about different needs

Talk about closeness, but not in bed and not at eleven at night when you both just want to sleep. A walk with the pram often works better.

Speak from your own experience. “I miss you” lands differently from “We haven’t had sex in months”. “I like touching you, but I’m afraid you’ll expect more” is more honest than avoiding it. And say what you wish for, not only what is missing. How a lack of desire can affect a relationship as a whole, you can read under no desire in a relationship.

Small forms of closeness in family life

Between “nothing at all” and intercourse there are many steps. A hand on the back of the neck while washing up. Falling asleep together, close. Ten minutes of massage while the baby sleeps. Showering together. Kissing without it having to lead anywhere.

Some couples find an agreement helps: touch where sex is explicitly not on the cards. The sex researchers Masters and Johnson described exercises like this under the name sensate focus. They take the pressure out of every hug, because it is clear it doesn’t have to lead to more.

And the practical question of where to put the baby: babies often fall asleep exactly when you least expect it. Sex doesn’t have to happen in the evening. And it doesn’t have to take long.

When to get help

If you have ongoing pain, heavy bleeding, a fever or stitches that won’t close, please contact your midwife or gynaecologist straight away.

Perhaps you have felt low, empty or overwhelmed for more than two weeks. Or you can’t feel joy about your child, or fears won’t let go of you. Then please talk to your midwife or doctor too. With postnatal depression, medical or psychotherapeutic help is the right path. If you have thoughts of harming yourself or your child, get help immediately.

When things stay difficult as a couple

Sometimes the body has long since recovered, and still you can’t find your way to each other as a couple. Conversations about closeness always end the same way, in an argument, in withdrawal or in silence. Then couples therapy or sex therapy can be a way to look at that pattern. We talk about what has changed between you, which hurts from the early days are still having an effect, and what each of you needs. I include the body, with breathing and awareness. If you like, you get exercises to try at home.

You can come together or on your own. If desire stays quiet for longer, you can find more under low libido in women.

The next step

My practices are in Prenzlauer Berg, at Am Friedrichshain, and in Neukölln. If childcare is difficult, we can also meet online, in English or German. You usually pay the fees yourself; German statutory health insurance does not cover them.