A study on Sexual Life During Pregnancy

임부의 성생활에 관한 조사연구

A Pregnancy is the women's normal physiological and developmental process, in which many psychological changes including sexual problems always occur. But there have been few guidelines on sexual life during pregnancy. So this study was performed to evaluate the sexual life of pregnant women, and to analyze the factors affecting satisfaction of sexual life during pregnancy. Questionnaires were given to pregnant women who visited two general hospitals for antenatal care as well as to attendants at a prenatal Lamaze class. The results were as followings : 1) The average age of the 194 pregnant women was 28.5 years ; 98.4% of them had educated more than 12 years. ; the average monthly income was about 15,000,000 won ; primigravida women were 81.4% of the total cases. 2) As the pregnancy progressed, the frequency of the sexual intercourses was decreased in 48.5% because of the anxiety on the fetal damages. The was no significant differences between frequency of sexual intercourses and the degrees of physical discomfort and spouse intimacy. Man superior position was taken in 88.1% ; the incidence of orgasms before and during pregnancy were 71.1% and 41.1%, respectively ; the incidence of painful sexual intercourse in primigravida women was decreased by pregnancy in 4.6%, and in the case of multigravida women it was increased in 2.1%. 3) The average point of sexual knowledge was 11.5 in total points of 20 ; that of sexual attitude was 29.1 in total points of 40 ; that of sexual satisfaction was 28.5 in perfects points of 40. 4) The factors which significantly related to the satisfaction of sexual life were spouse intimacy, sexual attitude, change of sexual body position during pregnancy, and the orgasms before and during pregnancy. Considering above results, nursing care and nursing intervention including sexual education and counselling programs are needed during pregnancy as well as before pregnancy.