Nursing

"Booze and snooze," the occasional glass of Port wine plus an extra nap during the day, are the old-fashioned remedies for nursing mothers. A modern woman who is used to being active outside the home may resent the idea of having to take extra rest, and may feel controlled if the man over-protects her. Again, many emotional issues arise, which can be handled along lines suggested in this book.

It appears that the only efficient way to nurse babies is "on demand," and this may prove to be very frequent. It is very unusual for a woman to maintain her previous level of sexual desire under these circumstances. Paradoxically, it is the most active and potent woman who may be most upset by this: she is used to experiencing a sense of sexual urgency, which leads her either to make active advances to her man or to welcome his advances enthusiastically; now, suddenly, the urgency is absent. In contrast, a woman whose sexual drive is usually fairly low, who is less used to initiating sexual activity and responds passively to the husband's advances, will not find the situation while nursing radically different. The more active woman has to adapt, during the nursing period, to the fact that her sexual need is more passive. She may discover, though, that her level of sexual excitement at orgasm is the same as ever though she gets there from a much less excited starting point. The husband of a normally potent woman must adapt to her new passivity. He must often initiate sex during this period. This shift in active-passive roles may require discussion. Don't ignore your feelings about it.

Other Factors

It helps to take a break between nursing and love-making during which the woman pursues an independent activity such as reading. If the husband's touch follows immediately on that of the baby, there is a continuum in which it becomes hard to shift into a state of sexual arousal.

Every measure should be taken to reduce the mother's fatigue, and its depth should be respected: it may be emotional as much as physical fatigue.

Although this idea is controversial I believe it is very useful, at times, to have the baby in bed with the parents at night: this reduces the effort in the woman having to get up and nurse, and provides security to the baby. (It is also one of the hidden secrets of North American parents, most of whom confess with one eye over their shoulder looking for disapproving pediatricians, that the baby sometimes shares the parents' bed). In this time period, it might be best for the couple to make love elsewhere than the "family bed." Once children are in a family, the continuum of contact between man and woman is broken. Lovemaking now becomes more of a separate event.

The man may experience a resistance to caressing the woman's breasts which now "belong to the baby."

Perhaps the emotional rivalry can be discussed and worked through. In fact, the man's way of touching or even sucking the breasts is radically different from the baby's. If the woman has some of the same resistance, she may be feeling insecure about her capacity to satisfy the baby. Even while the mother is nursing, it is quite important for the breasts to remain a focus in lovemaking, since they can be a vital area of arousal. In fact, because of hormonal changes while nursing, the connection between feelings in the breasts and contractions and sensation in the uterus is never more intense.

In other words, the potential for a more qualitatively intense sexual life exists after childbirth. The de-armoring of the birth process itself; the deepening bond of affection if the man has helped the woman in the birth; often a new sense in the woman of power and pleasure in the vagina; a deepening sense of pleasurable links between breasts and pelvis (nursing itself may produce genital sensations); and a permanent loosening of the abdominal musculature so that breathing tends to extend more easily downward—all these can intensify the couple's sexual relationship, and emphasize their more mature commitment.

At the same time as the potential for intense sexual contact increases, the demands of the infant ensure that the occasions for this contact decrease. Sometimes this can become an intolerable bind, particularly for the man: he desires his woman more than ever just when she is available less than ever.

Since the only way to avoid this dilemma can be at the baby's expense, with the result that the child would not develop his or her complete emotional and physical potential and would become armored, the couple must live with the uncomfortable strain which early adjustment to parenthood inevitably produces. Yet their deep feelings of need for a private close relationship, sexual and otherwise, can help sustain each partner's trust in the other's love during such periods of forced abstinence and/or stress. The more one has already invested in the relationship and the more mutual past giving has been, the more each can give in times of crisis. The special closeness existing between two people can transcend the difficulties of pregnancy, strains of parenthood, illness and frustration. Their passion may ebb for a time but it lies beneath the surface ready to be rekindled.

This kind of natural marriage, as distinct from compulsive marriage, develops from the committed relationship between the man and the woman as a couple, not as a response to social pressures. But no man is an island, nor is a marriage. There is a domino effect. When couples work to be true to the best in their marriage they become a source of life in their children and society.