Why Sex After Childbirth Could Be Your Best Yet

Birthing a child and becoming a parent to that newborn can have a major impact on your sex life. Approached well, these shifts might just bring you the most wonderful sex you’ve ever had.

I can’t speak about this from experience, which is one reason I was so grateful for the chance to sit down for a Girl Boner Radio chat with Kimberly Ann Johnson, a sexological bodywork, founder of Magamama.com, an international holistic women’s health care resource for expectant and new mothers, and author of The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions and Restoring Your Vitality.

Together we explored her journey to realizing the importance of creating a self-nourishing postpartum plan, myths surrounding child birth, pelvic health and female sexuality, ways to undo surrounding shame and positive changes that can unfold sexually once you’ve had a baby.

I especially loved what Kimberly shared about The Fourth Trimester’s section on reclaiming your sexuality post-childbirth and what she’s observed in women she works with:

“For some people, I think it should be called ‘claim your sexuality,’ because for so many people…they’ve had habitual patterns, maybe performative sex…and maybe the postpartum time is a time when they just can’t tolerate certain things anymore. They didn’t know they were tolerating certain things before, but now that they’re on the other side of it, they’re like, ‘I don’t want that kind of sex anymore.’

It’s confusing because they don’t necessarily know how to use their voice or ask for something different, but they’re clear on what they don’t want. I consider it to be a real maturation point. You can have better sex than you’ve ever had, but it’s not always a welcome shift because it seems so disconcerting. And also because of our conditioning about pleasing the other and our sexuality always being in relation to another… Your sexuality is your inherent life force that is always your own.”

Stream our full chat on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify or below! The episode also features thoughts from sex and relationship therapist Dr. Megan Fleming for a listener wondering why she feels itchy after masturbation.