Many young parents struggle to find out the best time to resume their sex life after having a child. This is because of the difficulty in finding out a safe period to have sex. Knowing the fact that unprotected sex might leads to unwanted pregnancy, most couples put their sex life on a back burner.
By developing self-awareness about your body and its functions, you can easily get back and enjoy your personal time with your partner, even after pregnancy. Here are some ways in which you can calculate a safe period to have sex along with some precautions to avoid pregnancy.
1. Don’t Have Sex Before Your Lochia Stops
Recent research says among 70% of the women who enjoy happiness during their pregnancy, experience depression in their postpartum period. This is also because of the strain that pops up in the caretaking of a newborn.
It is important for both mom and dad to know the need for a new mom’s body and the time taken by her to regain all her strength. Usually, a woman takes a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks to feel normal after her delivery.
By this time, her lochia (bleeding that had occurred after delivering the baby) may have stopped and she should have had time to heal from any stitches or episiotomy. So most people wait for the first 6 to 8 weeks before having sex.
2. Know About Your Ovulation
In general, a woman takes a duration of 28 days to complete an ovulation cycle. This cycle that occurs in a woman’s body is called a menstrual cycle. Among the 28 days, only 14 days are considered to be ‘Fertile Days’ as there are chances of a pregnancy. When it comes to safe period calculation, one should not prefer to have sex during this period.
The right time to have safe sex is a week before or after your period.
But when considering the postnatal period, it is difficult to understand a woman’s ovulation. As you do not bleed for several months after lochia, there are some challenges to know whether your body has started to ovulate again or not. Even if you have got your period after delivery, you cannot say that you are in a safe zone. Hence it is better to use an ovulation kit to know about your ovulation and the fertility of your ovaries for having safe sex.
3. Observe Cervical Mucus
Yet another fertility-based method to find out the safe period to have sex is to observe your cervical mucus. Mucus is a gel-like substance that your body produces at the cervix of your vagina. Through the colour, appearance and stickiness of the mucus, one can detect the fertility of their ovaries and plan for safe sex.
Right before and after your periods, the production of estrogen is very low and thus results in very little mucus on your cervix. This mucus produced by low leveled estrogen is white in colour and sticky but not too stretchy when you touch it. These are the symptoms to say that your ovaries are very weak and not able to form eggs. As your estrogen level goes high in the following days, you will observe a very thin, watery mucus which says that your ovaries are fertile to form eggs.
Though it appears to be a complex method to calculate a safe period, with time and experience one can learn to find out the safe period to have sex with cervical mucus observation.
Also read: What To Expect From Your Periods After Pregnancy?
4. Adopt A Contraceptive Method
A simple yet effective method is to adopt a contraceptive method that suits both partners. After one and a half months of delivery, when all the wounds and stitches have healed, many couples can start their sex life. So the best way to prevent immediate pregnancy is to prefer any contraceptive ways like using a male or female condom.
5. Breastfeed More
Almost all physicians insist on mothers’ natural feed for their babies as it comes up with a lot of benefits for both the mother and the child. For the first 6 months, a mother should compulsorily breastfeed her child. One reason is that a mother’s milk is a nature’s gift and cannot be replaced with any other formula milk and it contains all the nutrients needed for a newborn.
Another reason is that the longer you breastfeed your child the later you will have your periods. In a simpler way, the chances of getting pregnant are less while you breastfeed your baby. When you’re breastfeeding frequently, the estrogen level produced in your body will become low thus making your chances of getting pregnant less.
Also Read : How To Have Safe Sex During Pregnancy?
Some Precautions To Keep In Mind
- When the new moms are done with their confinement period, they should have a consultation with their gynecologist. The couple can also ask their doctor to know whether the mom is physically ready for resuming their sex life. So wait until your doctor gives the go-ahead to start.
- Practice abstinence on unsafe days
- It’s important to understand that a woman’s menstrual cycle has two components.
- As proliferating phase starts as soon as your periods begin, the ovaries are mostly infertile during the first phase. During the secretory phase, your ovaries can be fertile as it has been calculated as 14 days before your period starts.
- Having sex on these days can lead to an unplanned pregnancy. So it is wise to skip having intercourse on those 14 days in order to avoid getting pregnant.
Conclusion
There are several ways for parents to determine a safe period to have sex after having a child. Like Waiting until the lochia stops, tracking ovulation with an ovulation kit or observing cervical mucus, using contraceptives and breastfeeding more frequently. By learning certain facts about our own bodies, one can easily calculate a safe period to have sex and enjoy both motherhood as well personal time with your partner.
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