Sex After Birth: Why This Workshop Is Free
Nobody prepares you for how much intimacy and connection can shift after you have a baby. Not the books, not the birth classes, not even the well-meaning friend who tells you "it'll come back eventually." And yet it's one of the most common struggles new parents face, quietly, in the dark, usually alone.
That’s why my workshop on this topic is free… and that’s why I want to pepper them around town. It’s an important topic, no one wants to talk about. So we are talking about it.
This week I sit down with Krystle Gard, postpartum doula and Intimacy & Connection Coach, for an honest, shame-free conversation about what actually happens to your sex life after birth, and more importantly, what you can actually do about it.
Krystle's path into this work is deeply personal. She's had a supported home birth in Alaska, twins with no local support system, and three journeys as a surrogate, she has genuinely lived the full spectrum of postpartum experience. Combine that with years of work as a postpartum doula in other people's homes, and she saw the same thing over and over: new parents are given almost no real guidance on what happens to intimacy after birth, or how to find their way back to each other.
What We Get Into
We start with the basics nobody says out loud: why libido and desire commonly shift after having a baby, and why that shift is not a failure, not a sign your relationship is broken, and not something to white-knuckle through in silence. Krystle walks through the very real role sleep deprivation, hormones, and a dysregulated nervous system play in desire, because you cannot think your way into wanting sex when your body is still in survival mode.
We talk about self-pleasure as one of the most overlooked tools in postpartum recovery, not as a replacement for partnered intimacy but as a way back into your own body on your own terms. Krystle introduces the three-minute game from The Art of Giving and Receiving, which sounds almost too simple to work and yet, by her account, genuinely changes couples' ability to reconnect. We also get into the intimacy candle practice, a low-pressure way to keep a slow simmer going without the weight of expectation attached to it.
From there we go practical: love languages, a red, yellow, green communication system for signaling where you're actually at in the moment, and the idea of a favorite things list, so you're not left guessing what your partner actually wants when you finally do have the bandwidth to offer it. Krystle is also refreshingly blunt about lube being non-negotiable postpartum, no shame, no exceptions.
We close on something heavier and important: how birth trauma can affect your tolerance for touch, and gentle, patient ways to rebuild a felt sense of safety in your own body. And underneath all of it, a theme Krystle keeps returning to: humor, playfulness, and letting go of how things used to be, because chasing your pre-baby sex life is often exactly what keeps couples stuck.
Resources Mentioned
The Art of Giving and Receiving by Harry Faddis
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Sex After Birth Workshops: bewellbaby.org/sex-after-birth-class
Find Krystle
More About Our Guest
With a background in engineering, Krystle brings organization, intuition, and problem-solving to help families find systems and flow that make life easier. She loves teaching and educating new parents, offering hands-on newborn care guidance, household support, and a listening ear. She also provides Intimacy & Connection Coaching to help couples nurture their relationships after birth.
More About Your Host
Emily Spaeth is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and founder of Be Well Baby in Portland, Oregon. With extensive NICU experience and training in craniosacral therapy, she leads a team providing home-based health care for families navigating the tricky parts of pregnancy and postpartum.
She also hosts the Beyond Birth Blueprint, an online birth and postpartum educational community available to families across the country, so no matter where you are, you have access to support, resources, and connection. Emily is also a mother of three and passionate about helping families move from surviving to thriving.
