Desire after childbirthNo desire for husband after birth: why and when desire comes back

Why don’t I want my husband after giving birth

After childbirth several things switch desire off at once: pain, dryness, lack of sleep and a body you do not yet recognise. Each on its own lowers attraction, and together they easily bring it down to zero. Fixing them one at a time, sleep today, lubricant tomorrow, gives a temporary effect: I look at the body, the head and the state you live your day in, all at once.

Letters about this reach me all the time. “Since the birth I don’t want sex at all, the pull I had before is gone. More than a year has passed and nothing has changed.” “I was stitched during labour, and now when my husband touches me it feels horribly unpleasant.” One mother writes 8 months on, another 2 years on, and both are sure something is wrong with them.

First, look at your situation point by point.

What is happening	How it feels	What helps
A scar after a tear or episiotomy	Touching the perineum is unpleasant or painful	A gynaecologist’s examination, scar work, muscle training
High prolactin while breastfeeding	Dry, burning, penetration chafes	Lubricant, long foreplay
A weakened pelvic floor	“I can hardly feel him enter”	Pelvic floor muscle training
Lack of sleep	In the evening all you want is to lie down and switch off	Your husband takes the night shift, a nanny for a couple of hours
A new body	Ashamed to undress with the light on	Time for yourself, lingerie for the new figure
Not a minute to yourself	“I belong entirely to the baby”	Personal time by schedule

When can you have sex after giving birth

The uterus takes 6–8 weeks to recover: during this time the mucosa heals, the stitches dissolve, and the uterus returns to its previous size. Ideally it is a gynaecologist who gives the go-ahead for penetrative sex after an examination.

Those are the body’s timelines. Desire keeps its own calendar and may arrive later, sometimes much later. Many describe the first time after birth as a first intimate experience all over again: a little scary and slightly clumsy. That is how it is, and there is no reason to rush it.

The same 6–8 week restriction applies to anal sex: the organs nearby need to recover too.

When does libido come back after birth

There is no date by which desire has to return. Neither ACOG nor the British NICE names one, and the phrase “recovery takes one to two years” circulates online with no source at all.

What I see in practice: with a first child the difficulties tend to be greater. With the second you already understand that the perfect moment for intimacy with children in the house may never come, and you start catching moments rather than waiting for them. If more than a year has passed and there is no desire at all, waiting any longer makes no sense: at that point it is worth working out what is in the way.

According to Rosemary Basson’s model, in long relationships desire often wakes up only during intimacy and is silent before it. After childbirth this is especially noticeable. Do not wait for it to “come by itself” when you are getting three hours of broken sleep a day. Allow yourself to start with hugs and see what happens next.

Pain, stitches and dryness: the physical causes

It is logical not to want something that brings pain. If your husband’s touch on the perineum after birth is unpleasant, the cause is more often in the body than in the relationship.

The rough, inelastic tissue at the site of a scar after an episiotomy or a tear gets in the way of relaxing. The body clenches in advance, and the woman starts avoiding intimacy both physically and psychologically. ACOG lists childbirth among the causes of painful sex, and this kind of pain is treated. Start with a gynaecologist: check how the stitches have healed and whether there is inflammation.

The second cause is hormonal. During breastfeeding prolactin suppresses ovulation, oestrogen falls, and the vaginal mucosa becomes dry and thin. Oestrogen here is responsible for the moisture and elasticity of the tissues, while desire depends more on rest and context. Sex while dry chafes and hurts, and after a couple of such times desire leaves on its own. The key to good sex in this period is long foreplay and plenty of lubricant. I write separately about vaginal dryness and about what to do when pain during sex does not go away.

What the perineum looks like after birth and what happens to the pelvic floor muscles

After childbirth the perineum may look different: a scar, asymmetry, a different colour and texture of the tissues. The pelvic floor muscles are stretched and weakened after pregnancy and birth, and this changes the sensations during sex.

Many women are surprised to notice that their “husband’s manhood has shrunk”. Even after a caesarean section. The husband, of course, has nothing to do with it: the vaginal muscles weaken under the effect of hormones and the load on the pelvic floor over 9 months. Firmness is lost, and with it sensitivity, and orgasm after birth happens less often.

Pelvic floor muscle training works well here. For urinary incontinence it has one of the most solid evidence bases: the 2018 Cochrane review showed that these exercises help better than no treatment. You can start when you feel you have the strength; breastfeeding is no obstacle. How to do Kegel exercises for women and why they do not work for many, I explain on a separate page. I built my practicum “Healthy and Desired” (it runs in Russian and Ukrainian) with mothers after childbirth in mind, among others: on the body level it is five minutes in the evening with the trainer from the PionBox every student receives as a gift, and five minutes of breathing in the morning, and you can start as soon as your doctor has cleared you for sex.

A simple exercise I suggest starting with: lying on your back, bend your knees, lift your pelvis and at the same time draw in the pelvic floor and the belly, then lower the pelvis and relax everything. If you cannot feel what exactly you are drawing in, that is the usual story: most women do the exercises wrong, which is why on my practicum I check technique from video reports.

I don’t want my husband on maternity leave: personal time and fatigue

On maternity leave desire often fades because a mother has not a single hour left when nobody needs her. Attraction to a husband appears in a woman who has energy and a life beyond nappies.

Nobody has cancelled the cooking and cleaning, while your husband comes home in the evening fresh and ready for intimacy. What is needed here is a conversation about help, not about intimacy: ask him to take over the night-time wake-ups or an evening with the baby. If he cannot, agree on a nanny for at least a few hours a day, so that you can sleep and put yourself back together. If explaining it yourself is hard, my intensive “An Honest Manual for Men and Women” (the intensive is in Russian and Ukrainian) has a separate lesson, “After childbirth: support her emotionally and physically”, just let him listen to it. But lack of energy and lack of desire are different things: sometimes you have slept well and the “I want” still does not switch on, and then we look at the body and the head.

For me, a wife and mother of two, an hour alone with myself was once a real fantasy. Here is how I suggest winning it back:

1. Choose your time. Half an hour every day or one free day a week, you set the rules.
2. Gather the household and, in the gentle voice of a fairy, explain that mum needs to be alone sometimes to recover her strength and stay kind.
3. Warn them that during this time mum does not answer requests or calls.
4. Hang a sign somewhere visible: “My personal time is from … to …, please do not disturb”.
5. Do not give up in the first week. During your hour everyone will suddenly get hungry, start crying or need an urgent talk, and only when they realise you are not joking will they start to respect it.

A husband and children are a good thing. But dissolving in them is a very unhealthy business.

How to bring passion back after birth and not get pregnant again

It is better to bring intimacy back in small steps: hugs, massage, sex without the goal of getting to penetration. Contraception deserves a separate conversation, because the fear of another pregnancy dampens desire too.

Many rely on breastfeeding. According to the WHO, the lactational amenorrhoea method protects only when three conditions are met at the same time: exclusive breastfeeding, feeding on demand and a baby under 6 months old. It is impossible to predict when the first egg will mature, which is why the method is unreliable. Discuss with your gynaecologist which options suit you while breastfeeding; a general overview of methods is on my page about contraception.

Shyness about the new body gets in the way just as much. Your husband most likely does not notice your “flaws” until you start talking about them yourself. A fragrant body cream, pretty lingerie for your new figure and home clothes you like yourself in help for an evening. But sexuality is not looks, it is contact with your body: relaxing when someone is looking at you, not holding your breath, saying what you want. If these steps do not help and what worries you is not only the postnatal period, have a look at my general piece on how to want your husband again or come to my online consultation.