Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
Sex and Pregnancy
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My long time colleague and friend Colleen Weeks joins me to talk about all things pregnancy. This episode is your private in-home education class! You'll hear information every person needs to know about hormones, sex in pregnancy, partner concerns, and all the changes a body goes through to grow and birth a whole human. One of the biggest changes Colleen has witnessed over the years, is the increasing lack of trust women have in their bodies and how they function. Our hope is that this conversation will you help you gain confidence to trust your body in pregnancy, and all the seasons of your life.
*Don’t miss our next episode - Part Two: Sex, Postpartum and Breastfeeding
For more than 40 years, Colleen Weeks has passionately worked with childbearing women and their families as a Certified Childbirth, Lactation and Sex Educator, Certified Perinatal Bereavement Counselor and Maternal Mental Health Specialist. At Kaiser Permanente Orange County’s Anaheim and Irvine Medical Center’s she is the Perinatal Education manager. Colleen serves on the Family Violence Prevention team where she piloted an (ACE’s) Adverse Childhood Experience’s project and coordinates the FVPP Ambassador program.
Learn more about these topics
Sex After Baby
Learning to Listen to Your Body
Taking your Body on a Date
Your Body After Baby
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Becoming a parent is the biggest life change that can happen to somebody. Being a pregnant woman, everything in your body changes. Hormonally, the hormones increase from the beginning of pregnancy to giving birth. They increase by ten times their original amount. This never happens in another time in your life.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharky, your host. I'm so, so glad that you're here. I have a two-part episode for you all about sex, pregnancy, postpartum, breastfeeding, parenting, a little bit of everything on a big, big topic. You're gonna be delighted by my guest as much as I am. Her name is Colleen Weeks. We've known each other a very long time. We were first connected as young childbirth educators back in the day. And I think you're really going to learn a lot and feel cared about in this conversation together. Colleen, welcome to the show, my friend.
SPEAKER_00I am so happy to be here and to be your friend for all these years.
SPEAKER_01We have been colleagues a long time. I'd love for you to share a little bit about you and your work in the world.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, Confucius said to find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. And I feel like I've really been fortunate to do that. For more than the 40 years I've been working with childbearing women, and I love what I do. In the last almost 17 years, I have been at Kaiser Permanente. I'm the perinatal education manager. I coordinate all of our perinatal education programs. I also coordinate the perinatal bereavement program. I'm a certified childbirth educator, certified lactation educator, I'm a certified sex educator and bereavement counselor for prenatal loss and newborn loss. And I'm also a bereaved mother. So I have a great passion for serving that population well. And I know we have a wonderful program for perinatal bereavement at Kaiser Permanente in Orange County. And I'm a wife. I've been married for 46 years to a lovely husband. I am so thankful for him. We have a daughter, Sarah, who is the delight of our lives, and we have a daughter, Jasmine, who is no longer with us and why we are so passionate to serve the bereaved population of uh young parents. I'm really happy to be here and talk about sexuality in the childbearing years with you.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for joining me. You're just a wealth of information, and I'm really grateful for the many, many years you have served women and families. People listening wouldn't know just all you've done to support women and families all these years, and I'm grateful, Colleen.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you, Cindy, and I'm grateful to have done that beside you and for all you're doing for women and pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Women and pleasures today we are going to talk about pregnancy, sex, postpartum, breastfeeding, all of it. But let's talk a little bit about pregnancy first and just what's going on with your body and how this can add a whole nother layer to your sexuality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, becoming a parent is the biggest life change that can happen to somebody. Being a pregnant woman, everything in your body changes. Hormonally, the hormones increase from the beginning of pregnancy to giving birth. They increase by ten times their original amount. This never happens in another time in your life. There's the HCG hormone that's made in the placenta, the human placental lactogen, it stimulates the milk glands. Estrogen increases dramatically. Progesterone, it's formed in the ovaries of the placenta, and then the big one, oxytocin. I know a favorite hormone that you talk about a lot, oxytocin.
unknownThat's right.
SPEAKER_00All of these hormones are increasing in the beginning of pregnancy, those hormones maintain the pregnancy, but they also because they're increasing so much, cause some symptoms like morning sickness. And you know, morning sickness is no fun. We call it morning sickness not because it's in the morning of the day, but it's the morning of the pregnancy, the early part of the pregnancy. Nobody enjoys that, but they maintain the pregnancy. So they're a gift because they maintain the pregnancy. That's a good thing. But they also play havoc in our bodies as our bodies are adjusting to being pregnant. And then as the hormones decrease after the pregnancy, and then they continue, but then they they drop dramatically in the first weeks, but then they continue to drop through the first year. And so there's a huge adjustment through the nine months of pregnancy and the year of of the baby's first life. That is a dramatic change in a woman's life. And then if she goes on to have more children, it's up and down, up and down, up and down with each pregnancy.
SPEAKER_01That's such good information for people to have. So many people don't have this kind of education. Colleen, you and I know from teaching childbirth education all these years that when we don't know these things, people can feel afraid, they can feel, you know, just all discombobulated and not know how to cope, even because it doesn't all make sense.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't make sense, and hormones impact our emotions. We talk about the change of life menopause and the decrease in hormones, and that impacts our emotions. But boy, pregnancy, it's up and down and up and down, and so it's very real. It's not all in that expectant mother's head, it is a very real happening that is in her head, it's in the hormonal system, in the endocrine system.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I always like to remind people that we're each individual and different.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So how I respond in pregnancy and how you respond in pregnancy is not going to look the same.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. What I have seen in my 40 years in this field is that women are trusting their bodies less and less. Where I think probably a hundred years ago, when we lived closer with our families, and you know, sisters lived nearby, and they lived nearby their moms and their grandmothers, and they passed down wisdom, now we're so separated and we are not getting that support like we used to. Because of that, I think there's less of a trust in our bodies and what is normal, and you're not around your family when they have a baby, and you're like, I didn't see my sister do that, I didn't see my mom do that, I didn't see my cousins do that. And so if there's anything that I've seen in my 40 years in this field is a decrease in the trust of how the body functions. That's the biggest change that I've seen. And so the fear increases because of that lack of trust in the body. Our bodies are made to do this. Our bodies are made to get pregnant, they're made to be pregnant, they're made to give birth. There is an increase in infertility, and so if there's a struggle with fertility, there's you know delayed childbearing, which increases infertility. So when a young woman has experienced infertility, she doesn't trust her body right off the bat. And so once she does get pregnant, she's like, Well, my body didn't work to get pregnant. How is my body gonna function in pregnancy? How is my body gonna function during childbirth? How will my body function with breastfeeding? Because there's a lack of trust just getting pregnant, so it's kind of perpetuating itself. I think that's the biggest change that I've seen.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's fascinating to hear, and also some of the reason why I'm so glad we're gonna do this episode together to provide information and a community, to not be in isolation over these things, to hear some truth and some facts, and then not to feel so alone and know that you can trust yourself and your body. That's such a good word, Colleen, to pass on to the listeners.
SPEAKER_00I think it's very powerful, yes.
SPEAKER_01You know me, I'm gonna move right into the sex piece. Okay. Probably one of the biggest questions you and I get is sex safe during pregnancy? Often that's one of the first things people ask.
SPEAKER_00Sure, and it was the first thing that I asked when I had my first baby, and I saw my doctors like, can we really continue having sex while we're pregnant? Is it safe? Just the basics of anatomy is that intercourse occurs in the vagina. The uterus is an organ, the vagina is a passageway, and the uterus is an organ. And the baby is completely separate and protected in the uterus. I love that to know that the uterus goes from being the size of a pear, like two inches by four inches, it's three layers of muscle. There's a horizontal layer, a vertical layer, and a patchwork layer, and it doesn't stretch out thin, it grows big and thick and strong. And at full-term pregnancy, it becomes the strongest muscle in the human body, you know, bigger than what you see on Muscle Magazine. It's strong and powerful. Women are powerful, and then it's closed because the mouth of the uterus, the cervex, is filled with its tight banding and it keeps the uterus closed and protected. And then the baby is protected by the amniotic sac. And so the sac is amazing. There's two layers, the amnion and the coron, and they protect the baby. So, you know, no matter how powerful and big daddy's ego is, the penis is not going to invade the baby's space during intercourse. And so, unless there's been a history or a problem of preterm labor, and the doctor or midwife has advised the couple to avoid, or even a same-sex couple with toys, avoid vaginal penetration. Intercourse and penetration are completely safe during pregnancy, and they're good physically as well as emotionally, of course, for the relationship. So that's a really important thing, and that is a super common question. You know, back when we had our first baby, that was the first thing I asked when I saw our physician at our first prenatal visit. Can we continue to have sex? I didn't want to give that up. That was an important part of our relationship to continue having sex. So it's a common question that we get in prenatal classes and prenatal visits.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I'm glad we started with that because I just can't tell you how often we would have couples come up, or especially a male partner, would come up and say, Do you think the baby can see my penis? Do you think the baby can feel my penis? And I always say, That's such a good question. I'm glad you're paying attention and care, but no, absolutely not. All is well.
SPEAKER_00And you know, it's a sweet thing from a male partner because that shows that they are loving and caring and protective. It's a good relief for them to know that they are not going to harm their or injure their baby, and that shows that they're loving and caring. It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's a good thing. The next question always comes up when should we stop? Is there a time where then we should stop? Do you get that question a lot?
SPEAKER_00Yes, sure, we get that question. And you know, unless the provider has said that they've got some kind of a problem with preterm labor, they don't need to stop until they're in labor. But if the bag of waters has broken, the bag of waters is the primary barrier to infection for the baby. So once the bag of waters has broken, they're instructed to come to the hospital or to settle in with their birth setting, whatever their birth setting is, if it is a birth center or if they're planning a home birth with a doctor or midwife, their bag of waters has broken. It's time to focus on labor. And that's really the time to stop. Otherwise, continue unless they're having concerns with preterm labor. That's a really defining line. Pretty pretty simple answer to that one.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Let's admit though, some women are gonna have differences in desire during pregnancy and some partners as well. This is a common theme that comes up. Some women have increased desire. I mean, they feel magnificent, they feel powerful, they just are easily aroused, they're so excited about being pregnant, they feel beautiful. On the flip side, there's women who are, like we talked about earlier, throwing up major heartburn or major discomforts that just brings your desire right into the toilet, right? So it can go either way.
SPEAKER_00It can go either way. I don't know anybody, male or female, that finds vomiting or heartburn to be an aphrodisiac. You know, so that is not going to make anybody feel sexually active and aroused. So in the early part of pregnancy with nausea, yeah, desire may go down. Heartburn, that is definitely a part of pregnancy. And the further along you get as the baby is taking up more space in the abdomen and pushing up on the diaphragm, which is that frisbee-shaped muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity, it pushes up on the stomach and kind of opens up the esophagus, and some of the digestive enzymes kind of bubble up inside of the esophagus, causing heartburn. That is not an aphrodisiac either. Some of the things that we can do about that is to eat smaller, more frequent meals and to maybe make love, you know, before you've eaten a meal and maybe there's a little less heartburn, and then talk to your doctor or midwife about appropriate an acids and stay away from the offending foods. Different women, it's different things that cause heartburn. Stay away from those offending foods. But a lot of times sexual desire really increases during pregnancy, and it's because of the hormonal increases that increase the sexual desire. But also many women just feel so maternal and so happy, and then there's less fear about if they were afraid about getting pregnant, well, they're pregnant now, and their desire increases, but also their body is so sensitive, and sometimes that sensitive increases the sexual feelings and responses, but sometimes it overwhelms their feelings and responses, and it's just too much. And so one of the best things about that is communication and talking with their partner about this feels good to me now, or this doesn't feel good to me now. And some partners, again, are so sensitive they don't want to hurt them, and communication is really key. And then at the end of pregnancy, you know, maneuvering around that big belly is a whole new life change. And so different positions make a difference, you know, and that experimenting is really valuable. Sometimes it becomes uncomfortable just maneuvering around that big belly. And so experimenting with different positions, time of the day, but it always, and I know you say this all the time, Cindy, it goes back to communication and talking about what is important as far as when and how you want to do things. And pregnant women are hot, you know, your blood volume increases by 50% from the beginning to the ending of pregnancy, and your blood transports seven things in your body nutrients, waste, heat. So pregnant women are hotter than everybody else. It moves the heat in your body from the core of your body to your extremities. So if it's 70 degrees outside, by the end of pregnancy, the pregnant woman feels like it's 80 degrees outside. So if you're hot and sweaty, you may not feel super sexy. So finding a way to cool down, sitting in a cool bath or a pool or something like that, that may help bring down her core body temperature and feel romantic and touchy-feely and all of those things.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00It's just communicating about what feels better.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And let's circle back to positions because often people will say, Can you just give me a couple ideas? So if you're if you're used to one kind of position or another, what Colleen's encouraging you here is to experiment. So that might be a sideline position, that might be positions where the woman is on top so that she can control how much touching and speed and depth of penetration if you're having intercourse or rear entry positions where she's in the front and partners in the back, and then there's a room for the belly.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for breaking that down.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know me, I'm gonna get to the nuts and bolts of it. So you want to be comfortable and again experimenting, and also another big key here, and pregnancy is a great time to start this, is thinking outside of the box of intercourse so that you're engaging in other pleasurable sexual activities with your partner that you find it maybe all of a sudden or anew or wonderful and really enjoyable for you.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. There are all kinds of things that you can do with just manual stimulation, masturbation, just kissing and cuddling and touching. All of those things are really important. And as partners get to the very, very end of pregnancy and things are super uncomfortable for pregnant women in those last weeks, other forms of stimulation, mutual masturbation, those kinds of things are very pleasurable and satisfying.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and we'll talk more about that as we go because I'm big on thinking outside of the box, especially when we move into postpartum. That is for sure. Let's circle back to the communication piece because this is so important, and especially if you've not communicated a lot about sex, you are not unusual. This is sadly really common for couples. And pregnancy is a great time to start because you're in a whole new phase, and you can initiate these conversations out of this new stage, this new body that's growing and human inside it. I love it that it's an opportunity to open the conversation.
SPEAKER_00It's a beautiful opportunity to open the conversation about sexuality, and it will enhance their parenting as well. I mean, think of all the things that are new in the childbearing years to communicate about is how do we want to parent a child and how do we want to move forward as a couple. This is the biggest life change for a young couple is to have their first child. And this is going to expand their communication in so many ways. This season of changing sexuality is probably one of the first times that their sexuality will really make a big change. And it's not that it's going to go away. This is just a season that is different. So they may have increasing sexuality, and then there's going to be decreasing sexuality for a time soon after the baby's born, and then it may increase again, but there's going to be ebb and flow throughout their life. But this is the time to open that communication rather than have it just dwindle. You know, so often I hear from people, you know, we had our babies and our sex life kind of fell apart, we've just never regained it after that. That is heartbreaking to me when I hear people say that. This is a time to expand communication and recognize that this is just a season that it may increase and then decrease and increase and then decrease, but the communication gets better and better and better. I am so thankful that I learned those things with our first pregnancy. And here we are going on in you know, 45, 46 years, and there have been ebb and flow over those years, but the communication has increased throughout. The value of being able to talk about anything is powerful and bonding. You know, we talk a lot about the the term bonding, that was coined by Marshall and Klaus. In the 50s, in the 1950s, they coined that term and now it is in our everyday lexicon. And it was created about parent and infant bonding, but now we use it about every kind of relationship. It is so powerful that if we build that with our children and our infants, it is still important with our couples. Its foundation is with communication.
SPEAKER_01Yes, communication is the key.
SPEAKER_00Communication, it's physical, it's eye to eye, it's touch, it's conversation, it's opening our hearts to each other and talking about what's working, what's not working without blame, all of those things.
SPEAKER_01Well, that is a beautiful way to wrap up this part of the conversation, but I do want to ask you if maybe there's one or two questions you've heard as an educator over 40 years that maybe we didn't talk about here that you want to be sure and hit.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you, Cindy. I'm thinking of one thing. I'm thinking about breast changes during pregnancy. So, one of the things that happens during pregnancy, about midway during the pregnancy, is the breasts are preparing to breastfeed. And so So the anatomy of the breasts, the glands and the ducts are changing and they're preparing to breastfeed. Whether the mother is preparing to breastfeed or not, the breasts are preparing to breastfeed and they're making milk midway through the pregnancy. And so the breasts get larger, they get fuller, you see blue veins that are becoming more prominent. And in some women, they may notice milk leaking. So that newborn milk is called colostrum. We often call it liquid gold because it's so high in antibodies that will protect the babies at birth. But the milk is there. That newborn milk is there. Some women may notice that they're leaking colostrum from the mid-pregnancy to the end. Whether they notice that they're leaking it or not, it's there. Doesn't matter if they're leaking it or not, it is there. It's interesting when I'm teaching a class, they'll kind of pull me aside and say, Can I ask you a private question? And I usually know what's coming. It's about their breast changes. You know, when we make love, if he's suckling at my breasts or squeezing my breasts, I'm noticing that there's this thick, it's either clear or yellow, thick substance leaking from my breasts. Is that okay? It's absolutely okay if it's happening, and it's okay if it's not happening. That's that newborn milk called colostrum. And they're worried that what if it all leaks out and there's none left for the baby? Well, it replenishes. There will be plenty left for the baby because whatever leaks out, the body replenishes, and it means that your body is working perfectly. It's just what it should do. And it goes back to that trust thing that we talked about. The body is made to make milk for the baby, and it will be there when the baby is born. You don't have to fret about it. It is there if you are pregnant and if you've had any breast changes at all. If they've gotten fuller or firmer, if they've got blue veins, if the nipple and arela have become darker, all of those things mean, hey, your breasts notice, your body noticed that you're pregnant and it's preparing to breastfeed your baby. And that is a good thing. That is a common question that I get.
SPEAKER_01That is perfect. I mean, don't you just listen to Colleen friends and wish she was like holding your hand at your house for your whole pregnancy? She is a beautiful soul, and I think we both want you to hear these normal things and to be listening to your body. And what is she telling you? And learn to trust her. She's so strong and powerful, and you can do this. That's what I always want to tell women who are pregnant. You were made to carry and birth this baby, and you can.
SPEAKER_00Yes, they can. Trust your body.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So we will pause here and continue our conversation in part two with more on breastfeeding and sex and postpartum. And I hope you'll join us there. Be sure to rate and review the show on Apple and Spotify if you want to support this work and the podcast. Do check out the show notes because I'll have links there for more content on these subjects and also where you can sign up for my monthly newsletter. And we'll see you over in part two.
