Dyspareunia in Pregnancy

Most of the literature on dyspareunia has dealt with non-pregnant women. Steege and Jelovsek 24, in a cross-sectional study of obstetric registrants, determined that ‘dyspareunia is experienced infrequently during pregnancy’ but did not look at ‘pelvic pain during sexual relations’ prior to pregnancy to assess a change in incidence.Fifty-two married gravidae were queried periodically after (retrospectively) obtaining prepregnancy data including information on dyspareunia. During the 4 pregnancy testing periods both the percentage of women reporting painful coitus and the consistency of the discomfort on repeated coitus increased as the pregnancies progressed. By the third trimester 12% of the women were experiencing painful intercourse more than half the time. Additionally 40% were apareunic. Correlations were found between dyspareunia and happiness about being pregnant, anxiety about the pregnancy, and the perceived attractiveness to the husband. As hypothesized, significant associations were also found between dyspareunia and sexual desire, coital frequency, orgasm and sexual satisfaction. In general, painful intercourse did not correlate with demographic variables. The positive correlations of dyspareunia and pregnancy were clustered in the second trimester, the trimester which, in several respects, most closely approximates the non-pregnant state. Although Perkins has indicated that pregnancy itself may be the most important or overriding variable influencing sexuality in pregnancy, it may have a less global effect on psychosexual variables during the mid-trimester so that statistically significant associations emerge at this time.