from Section 1 - General Issues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2022
Sexual practices are strongly influenced by social and cultural norms and hence encompass a wide degree of heterogeneity between different cultures. Cultural diversity in sexual practices is subject to an even more complex array of sociocultural, physical, and psychological influences in pregnancy. The literature in this area demonstrates both this diversity and also commonalities among cultures, with universally high rates of female sexual dysfunction (FSD), unnecessary avoidance of sexual activity in pregnancy due to ill-informed fears, and unmet desire for antenatal education and assessment of sexual issues by health practitioners. This chapter presents the current evidence on rates of sexual activity and FSD in pregnancy and influences upon these in different cultures. Increasing awareness of common rates of sexual activity in pregnancy may normalize a reduction in activity and consequently reassure couples that such changes are not necessarily indicative of relationship issues. Conversely, identifying and addressing preventable issues affecting sexual health in pregnancy could potentially improve parental well-being, strengthen family bonds, and positively impact the development of offspring.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.