How Do Pregnant Women Conceptualize Their Sexual Relationships: A Qualitative Study

Pregnancy is a unique event that might challenge sexual relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of sexuality from pregnant woman’s perspectives.

This was a qualitative study reporting the findings of individual in-depth interviews with 23 pregnant women conducted in Kashan, Iran in 2018. Participants were selected using purposive sampling. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data collection continued until data saturation was achieved. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze the data.

The main emerged theme was priority to fulfill husband's sexual need comprising of two categories including: (1) more male-centered sexual relationship in pregnancy consisting of three sub-categories of passive sexual role, give in to sex for fear of infidelity and self-blame for not providing optimal sex to the partner (2) unmet emotional-sexual expectations of pregnant women consisting of two sub-categories of needing to more husband's empathetic behaviors and dissatisfaction from mutual companionship of spouse in sexual relationship.

The findings suggest that pregnancy can have unpleasant effects on pregnant women's life emotionally and lead to a decreased quality of sexual life. Sexual health consultation must be embedded in prenatal care in order to increase marital satisfaction.