EXPERTS say that six out of every 10 women experience sexual difficulties during pregnancy and prenatal care providers need to develop protocols that will assist in screening for, identifying, and managing expectant mothers with sexual dysfunction to improve sexual health in pregnancy.
In a study, researchers said that sexual difficulties are rife among the pregnant population, studied at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti, with its occurrence increasing with the advancement in pregnancy.
The study, which included 124 women pregnant with single babies that had cohabited with their partners for at least four weeks prior to recruitment, said that 60.5 per cent of the respondents had sexual dysfunction in the 2021 Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research.
According to the study, sexual difficulties are significantly more likely to occur in women who are Christians, professionals, Yoruba, had tertiary education and were in the third trimester of pregnancy.
In addition, about 70% of the study participants considered themselves sexually active and 98 had sexual satisfaction. However, only 39.5 per cent of the women often initiated intercourse during the course of the pregnancy.
Also, the sexual position commonly utilised was doggy (48.3 per cent) followed by missionary (41.4 per cent) position. More than half of the women believed that sex makes labour easier while more than 70 per cent engaged in sex to satisfy their sexual urge. The most common reason for not engaging in intercourse was reduced libido (86.5 per cent) followed by discomfort and pain.
Although sexual domains of arousal and orgasm, especially in the last trimester of pregnancy were scored the lowest in this study, they suggested the reduction in the orgasm domain may not be unconnected with psychological inhibition which could follow the fear of adverse obstetric outcomes (miscarriage, membrane rupture, infection) reported by the respondents.
While this finding may be due to the wide differences in the proportion of women from the various ethnic and religious groups in this study, the researchers said further epidemiological surveys are needed to ascertain if cultural and religious influences can be identified.
They, however, suggested that since more education could result in better health-seeking behaviour since educated respondents were better able to identify aberrations in their sexual patterns, and were less reluctant to divulge it.
According to them, “Considering the public health importance of sexual dysfunction and the ‘preference’ for ‘suffering in silence’ in our setting, prenatal caregivers should be aware of this problem. Guidelines for screening, identifying, and managing women with sexual dysfunction should be developed and adhered to.
“Misconceptions regarding the role of sex and labour facilitation should be addressed with research and evidence-based health education.”
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