Understanding patient perspectives of sexual health counseling in postpartum care

Background Sexual health in the postpartum period contributes to a patient’s overall well-being, highlighting the importance of addressing concerns that may arise related to sexual dysfunction. The comprehensive postpartum visit should include providing guidance on sexuality, management of dyspareunia, and resumption of intercourse. There is little literature examining the incidence of such counseling. Methods Patients who attended their postpartum visit at a large, urban academic medical center were invited to complete a web-based survey at their postpartum visit as part of a quality initiative. The survey consisted of a total of 34 questions evaluating frequency and quality of sexual health counseling, as well as sexual experience after delivery. Descriptive statistics, chi-squared tests, and multivariable logistic regression were used to analyze our findings. Results Our survey study had a 41.5% response rate (277/668). A total of 91% of participants reported receiving some sexual health counseling at their postpartum visit but only half of participants reported the counseling as helpful. Providers were statistically more likely to discuss sexual health with primiparous over multiparous participants (94.9% vs 87.9%; P = 0.037) and patients who had not yet resumed intercourse (93.5% vs 85.7%; P = 0.039). Providers had longer conversations with patients who delivered vaginally versus via cesarean (P = 0.039). Conclusions Providers at this institution are almost universally offering some sexual health counseling to patients. However, we found that parity, delivery mode, and resumption of intercourse may impact providers’ likelihood of discussing sexual health with postpartum patients.