SWIFT Lab - What does the loss of a pregnancy mean for sexual well-being? improvements

What does the loss of a pregnancy mean for sexual well-being? Improvements and stability in sexual outcomes over time.

By Carly Miller, Adrienne Wilder, Celsey Selland, and David Allsop

This blog is a summary of our published article:

Allsop, D. B., Péloquin, K., Cockwell, H., & Rosen, N. O. (2024). Trajectories of sexual well-being and links with grief after a recent pregnancy loss: A dyadic longitudinal study. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 21(10), 940–950. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdae088

Photo by Meeko Media on Getty Images

One in four women loses a pregnancy during their lives. Couples who face pregnancy loss often face mental health and relationship challenges [1]. These challenges include struggles with sexual satisfaction and sexual desire [6], potentially due to grief after a pregnancy loss, known as perinatal grief. However, to this point, couples have not had information on how sexual well-being or perinatal grief changes across time, making it hard to know what to expect post-loss. Understanding these changes could help healthcare providers and couples better manage changes to sexual well-being after a pregnancy loss. In turn, this knowledge could benefit couples’ health and relationships, as sexual well-being is key to both of them [2; 3; 4].

What did we want to know?

The goal of this study was to discover whether couples who had experienced a pregnancy loss would express an increase in sexual satisfaction and desire over time, as well as a decrease in sexual distress and perinatal grief. Another goal was to find if higher levels of perinatal grief just after the pregnancy loss would be associated with more improvement in sexual well-being over time.

What did we do?

132 couples who had experienced the loss of a pregnancy within the last 4 months completed 4 monthly surveys about their sexual well-being and grief. On average, couples took their surveys from 10 to 25 weeks (3 to 8 months) after their pregnancy losses. The couples included an individual who had been pregnant when the loss happened (women and gender diverse individuals), and a partner who had not been pregnant (men, women, and gender diverse individuals). Both couple members completed the assessment separately. Sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, sexual distress, and perinatal grief of the participating couples were assessed through sets of questions commonly used by researchers.

What did we find?

Sexual satisfaction:

There was an average increase in sexual satisfaction from 10 to 25 weeks post-loss for both couple members. For individuals who were pregnant, this increase was from 66% to 73% of the highest possible sexual satisfaction. For partners, it was from 67% to 72%.

Sexual desire:

Sexual desire did not change on average for either couple member.

Sexual distress:

For individuals who were pregnant, sexual distress did not change on average.

For partners, there was an average decrease in sexual distress. This decrease was from 24% to 21% of the highest possible sexual distress.

Perinatal grief:

There was an average decrease in perinatal grief for both couple members. For individuals who were pregnant, this decrease was from 41% to 30% of the highest possible perinatal grief, while for partners it was from 27% to 24%.

Perinatal Grief Predicting Sexual Well-Being:

Levels of perinatal grief when couples started the study (at 10 weeks on average) did not predict later changes in sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, or sexual distress for either couple member.

What does this mean?

This study illustrated that, overall, sexual outcomes did not worsen following a pregnancy loss. Rather, these outcomes were shown to improve or remain stable over time. Perinatal grief additionally improved over time and was not shown to predict changes in any of the sexual outcomes examined. These results could offer comfort to couples experiencing a pregnancy loss, highlighting a positive outlook for their sexual well-being and levels of grief.

Sexual well-being is a difficult yet important topic to approach with patients. Clinicians could use these results to reassure couples that their sexual outcomes are unlikely to worsen over time, and that sexual satisfaction improves from 10-25 weeks after a loss, allowing clinicians to offer comfort throughout patient care. Informing couples of these findings can allow them to feel better prepared and supported in their post-loss experiences. While the present may be trying for couples experiencing a pregnancy loss, this study helps to illustrate that time can be healing and that the future shows stability and improvement.

Photo by Timur Weber on Pexels

References

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https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.1995.tb00092.x

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https://doi.org/10.1080/00926239608414655

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[5] David B Allsop, Katherine Péloquin, Heather Cockwell, Natalie O Rosen, Trajectories of

sexual well-being and links with grief after a recent pregnancy loss: a dyadic longitudinal

study, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, Volume 21, Issue 10, October 2024, Pages

940–950, https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdae088

[6] Allsop DB, Péloquin K, Cockwell H, Rosen NO. Higher than usual levels of perinatal grief

predict poorer sexual well-being for couples after a pregnancy loss: A longitudinal study. Paper

presented at the meeting of the National Council on Family Relations, Orlando, FL. 2023.

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