What to Expect When You’re Expecting: Perinatal Sexual Education Is Linked with Couples’ Sexual Well-Being in Pregnancy and the Postpartum

ABSTRACT

Up to 88% of expectant and new parents report problems with their sexual well-being, yet less than 30% of individuals receive information about potential sexual problems from health-care professionals. Lack of information may contribute to difficulty adjusting to sexual challenges, and in turn, to poorer sexual well-being. The current study examined the following: 1) the amount of perinatal sexual health information individuals receive/access; 2) gaps between desired and received information; 3) barriers to accessing information; and 4) links between the quantity of information received/accessed and sexual well-being outcomes in one sample of pregnant couples (N = 102) and another sample of couples in the postpartum (N = 102). Results revealed that most participants reported receiving/accessing little-to-no sexual health information, despite most participants wanting to receive a variety of information related to their perinatal sexuality. On average, expectant and new parents were indifferent regarding how easy/comfortable they felt discussing their sexuality with health-care professionals. Overall, when gestational parents received/accessed more pregnancy-related sexual health information and when either parent received/accessed more postpartum-related sexual health information, both members of the couples reported greater sexual well-being. Access to information might not only address couples’ needs and concerns but may also bolster sexual well-being during a vulnerable period.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge and thank Chloe Dean and Greta Jang for their assistance with data collection and data processing.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

Data for the present manuscript are available upon request. SPSS syntax and output for main analyses can be found in the Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/25hs7/).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2193570.

Notes

¹ For inclusivity and clarity with respect to studies conducted in pregnancy versus the postpartum, we use the terms “gestational parent” to describe the pregnant partner and “birthing parent” to describe the partner who gave birth. We use the terms “non-gestational parent” or “non-birthing parent” to refer to the partner who is not pregnant and did not give birth, respectively.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. (SSHRC) awarded to S. J. Dawson and N. O. Rosen [grant ID 430-2019-0203]. E. T. Fitzpatrick was supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship-Masters Scholarship and Guiding Interdisciplinary Research on Cisgender and Transgender Women and Girls’ Health and Well-being (GROWW) Scholarship. N. O. Rosen was supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award and the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation. S. J. Dawson was supported by a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award.