My head is heavy with lack of sleep, my eyes adorned with deep dark circles. My aching back and shoulders are tight with pain and my throat is so dry I feel like I’ve just walked the Mojave. Skin hangs loosely around my stomach while my breasts lie cracked and bleeding from the baby learning to feed. The last thing I feel is sexy and the last thing I want is sex. If pregnancy made me wildly horny, nothing sobered me up faster to abstinence like birthing a baby.

“You never have sex again,” says Anna Patterson, 29, a stay at home mom recalling her sex life after having a baby. “Oh wait, I have three kids don’t I? I guess I must have done it two more times.”

A lack of interest in sex after birth is hardly surprising. After all sex takes energy, concentration and time – all of which are in pretty short supply for new parents. They are busy struggling, adjusting to life with a demanding newborn who more than likely hasn’t yet learned that humans are supposed to sleep at night.

The body has also just gone through its biggest trial to date and even women who go into the delivery room in great physical shape usually take a minimum of six weeks to recover from the repercussions of childbirth. For many, it is six months isn’t enough time.

“I found that I definitely masturbated a lot more,” says Gehan Cheung, 41, who had his first baby this year. “Desire-wise nothing lessened for me after the baby came you know, but I knew I had to ease off and give my wife space.”

Gehan is not alone, my husband Petr backed off too, but his reasons for abstinence were motivated by exhaustion and his own perspective on breastfeeding.

“For me breasts are a big part of sex,” he says. “ With (my wife) breastfeeding I just don’t feel like that part of the body is as available to me, it’s something to be left to the baby for now.”

Other factors contribute to abstinence after birth, some more psychological than expected. Changing hormonal levels in the woman’s body can cause bizarre feelings that interfere with the usual desire for intimacy with her partner.

“Having the crib in our bedroom really affected me,” says Lisa Jackson, 31, who is currently pregnant with her second child. “I couldn’t even look at it and think of sex-I got in total mom mode and I really didn’t need it, sex just felt like a chore, plus I was really sore from being sewn up and the idea alone hurt.”

Many women I’ve talked with are surprised to find that postpartum intercourse can really hurt. If your perineum ends up ripping or you have an episiotomy, (where a doctor makes a laceration to allow space for the baby to exit) both require stitching and the after-effect of this procedure can be long-lasting.

My advice is to not be discouraged by the pain and remember that it won’t always feel bad. The book What to Expect When You’re Expecting, by Eisenberg, Murkoff, and Hathaway, gives great tips on how to ease back into sex after you have healed physically.

Hormone levels continue to drop off during the postpartum period and lowered sex drive may also require you to hold on to a good bottle of lube for dear life. You may also consider trying out some new positions that would put less pressure on the stitch site and don’t forget about the wonders of alcohol. A glass of wine will go a long way in helping to relax a new mom, not to mention a new dad.
And don’t be afraid of the after-effects of delivery, not everyone suffers as a result of having to be stitched up, some feel only improved by the process.

“It feels like being a virgin all over again because (after healing) everything is tighter,” says Ryann Cheung, who had her first baby earlier this year. “It’s pretty awesome.”
So even if there is a dry spell after the waters of birth, eventually things will balance themselves out. Remember to give each other a break and keep the lines of communication wide open - both partners in the relationship need to accept changes. Other things can be just as gratifying as traditional sex, so don’t shy away from the art of substitution.

Massage was something I wanted a lot more than sex, it was beneficial for my sore body and still provided intimacy for both me and my husband. Massage is also a nice lead in to oral sex or mutual masturbation, other alternatives available to couples who’ve just had a baby.

Regardless of what type of energy level or hormone level you possess after delivery, you will find that your sex life changes. Even if you’re as horny as you’ve always been, your life has altered forever and having sex now just isn’t as easy as it was before your baby came to live with you. Sex now has to be fit in and that isn’t always very sexy.

Try to be open to the idea of no longer really being able to have sex like you used to – don’t hold on to doing it when and where you did before. If you reinvent how you connect with your partner sexually, you may find that although you can’t do it as often, its quality, not quantity that really counts.