Interpretation of changes in a woman's sexual behavior during pregnancy

Abstract

A woman’s sexuality during pregnancy can have remarkable changes that often lead to non-pleasurable sex,  with negative effects on sexuality at this stage, leading to changes in the pattern of sexual behavior of women at this stage, where there is almost always decreased vaginal intercourse and other sexual practices  unjustifiably. State of the art was investigated on the most important changes affecting the sexual behavior  of pregnant women, from the collection and analysis of different existing bibliographic sources, in order to  understand and interpret the most important sexual changes in pregnancy and how these affect sexuality. It  was concluded that in most cases there is less sexual activity due to decreased sexual desire, with alterations  in the phases of female sexual response and that these situations are influenced by external factors as socio- cultural. On the other hand, it was observed that there may also be a positive effect on sexuality during  pregnancy, especially in woman with good pre-gestacional sexual practices.

Aims. Conduct thoughtful research on changes in women's sexual behavior during pregnancy, interpret them and determine their impact on pregnant women's sex lives.

Settings and Design. Qualitative, state of art.

Methods and Material. Work is carried out under the interpretive paradigm, by reviewing several studies carried out on the subject, thus being able to build a state of art on these sexual changes in pregnant women. The results obtained from a collection and analysis of the existing literature, which was carried out by consulting in academic databases specializing in medical sciences, which allowed the review of multiple scientific articles, research papers, academic texts and doctoral theses.

Results. During pregnancy, a serious number of physical and hormonal changes take place that significantly  modify the sexual response. As García mentions (2016), changes occur in the phase of desire, which may be  low in the first trimester, to increase in the second trimester of pregnancy; the excitation phase is modified  by the vasocongestion of pregnancy, so it is for some women may be accompanied by irritation or pain  (Escudero, 2015), but for other women it is not affected. Manueres and Alvarado (2017), found that some  pregnant women may experience disconfort or pain during intercourse and still continue to consent to their  partner, which could condition desarmony between them; they also show that more than half of the  pregnant women in their study consider their sex life "regulating." With regard to sexual satisfaction, Garcia  (2016) showed that it was lower as gestation progressed, in those women who referred to a "very good" level of sexual satisfaction in the first trimester this decreased to "good" in the second and its instead to "regular" in the third trimester of pregnancy as the study of Sapien and Cordoba (2011) shows, showing that some are  reducing the sexual activity characterized by vaginal intercourse as gestation progresses and in some cases  eliminated it since the medical diagnosis of pregnancy, the same thing happened with masturbation, fellatio,  mutual oral sex, cunnilingus and anal penetration. At other times men were involved in extra-marital sex.

Conclusions. Most authors agree that sexual activity, desire, satisfaction, and coital and orgasmic frequency  have a progressive decrease throughout pregnancy compared to pre-gestational status, these changes also  appear to be influenced by pre-pregnancy sexuality, so that women who have shown good pre-pregnancy  sexuality continue to maintain it at this stage.