#502 How to Understand and Overcome the Challenges of Postpartum Sex
Java with Juli - Making Sense of God and Sex
Authentic Intimacy®
4.9 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pregnancy has its ups and downs, but where the rubber hits the road for most is postpartum. If you’re a woman who has had a baby or you’re a man married to one, you understand that there are fairly common challenges specifically around postpartum sex.
There’s a lot to navigate—changing bodies, new responsibilities, challenging hormones, it’s no wonder women struggle to figure out how they feel about sex and couples are hard pressed to find a new sexual rhythm.
In this much-needed and highly requested podcast episode, Juli is joined by pelvic floor therapist Heather Marra, and Dr. Jennifer Degler as they explain why sex is so different postpartum, and what wives and their husbands can do about it.
Guests: Dr. Jennifer Degler, and Heather Marra, PT, MPT
Jennifer’s website: jenniferdegler.com/
Heather’s website: onesimplestep.today/
Jennifer’s Instagram: @drjenniferdegler
Heather’s Instagram: @onesimplesteptoday
Blog: What If I Hate Sex?
Java with Juli: #484 Duty Sex, Feeling Objectified, and Other Reasons Women Don’t Enjoy Sex in Marriage
Java with Juli with Dr. Juli Slattery – Christian Discussions on Marriage, Sex and Singleness.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Well, hey, friend, welcome to Job with Julie. I'm Julie Slattery, and let me just remind you that this |
| 0:06.6 | podcast is listener-supported, and it's an outreach of authentic intimacy, which is a ministry |
| 0:11.6 | dedicated to helping people make sense of God and sexuality. Well, we talk quite a bit about sex |
| 0:18.7 | on this podcast, but there's one aspect that we haven't talked about in great detail, and that is postpartum sex or sex after pregnancy. |
| 0:28.6 | Now, this might not come as much as a surprise, but sex after babies or after kids is a little bit different than sex before them. |
| 0:37.0 | Not only is a woman's body physically different |
| 0:39.4 | after giving birth, but she has new emotions and there's a lot of fatigue. And as a couple, |
| 0:45.5 | you're adjusting to a lot of new normals. Well, today, my guests are Dr. Jennifer Degler and |
| 0:51.6 | Heather Mara, who is a pelvic floor therapist. Together, this dynamic |
| 0:55.9 | duo is going to help husbands and wives understand some of the challenges that they're facing |
| 1:00.9 | in their sexual relationship. And they'll provide some strategies and advice for what to do to make |
| 1:06.4 | things better. So grab your coffee, maybe a notebook to jot some things down, and tune in to this |
| 1:12.6 | very helpful conversation with my guest, Jennifer Degler and Heather Mara. |
| 1:17.9 | Well, we know that having sex sometimes leads to having children, but the opposite usually |
| 1:24.9 | doesn't work. Like, once you have children, it tends to slow sex down. |
| 1:29.5 | So I think particularly for women. |
| 1:31.8 | And so I'm so thankful to have you two ladies here with me today to talk through some of the complication, the complexity, the struggle of how do you reengage sexually once you've had kids? So you guys are bringing like |
| 1:46.3 | expertise, fun stories, and great advice. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. |
| 1:52.0 | Happy to be here. Glad to be here. Yeah. So I feel like this is such a multifaceted topic |
| 1:58.8 | that sometimes when we talk about postpartum sex we only |
| 2:02.5 | talk about one piece of it maybe we only talk about the biological or maybe we only talk about |
| 2:08.1 | the relational dynamics and how that is shifted in a marriage but i'm hoping that we can cover |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Authentic Intimacy®, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Authentic Intimacy® and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.