Interrelationships between Sexual Responsiveness, Birth, and Breast Feeding

Abstract

There is a tendency in our society to place special emphasis on the types of female sexual behavior that are of particular pertinence to adult men. Thus women's responses in coitus are singled out for considerable attention while discussion and research on the psychophysiologic aspects of their other reproductive behavior tends to be muted. Full understanding of female sexuality, however, requires consideration of all their reproductive responses. Males can form reproductive relationships only with females. Their adult reproductive behavior is limited to one act-coitus. Adult females, on the other hand, have at least three acts of interpersonal reproductive behavior-all three involving the participation of two human beings. These behavior patterns are (1) coitus, (2) parturition, (3) lactation. Here we will consider the close interrelation of these three psychophysiologic functions. In practical terms, this implies that what occurs on the delivery table is very pertinent to what will transpire later in the marital bed and that mother-baby relationship without enjoyable lactation is in a somewhat similar psychophysiologic position as a marriage without enjoyable coitus. Before discussing characteristics common to all three reproductive interpersonal acts, the similarities between coital behavior and birth behavior, and between coital behavior and lactation behavior will be discussed. RELATION OF BIRTH BEHAVIOR TO COITAL ORGASM The relation of birth behavior to coital behavior becomes apparent when accounts of uninhibited reproductive actions are reviewed. Some years ago in reading Read's observations of natural childbirth (1944, 1949, 1950a, 19506) and Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhard's detailed descriptions of orgasm behavior (1953) I was impressed by the similarity of the reactions manifested in both behaviors. Indeed, uninhibited, undrugged childbirth and sexual excitement are similar in the following characteristics: Breathing Vocalization Facial expression Uterine reactions Cervical reactions Abdominal muscle reactions Position Central nervous system reactions Strength and flexibility Sensory perception Emotional response The Kinsey et al. data (1953) came from interviews, from scientifically trained persons observing human sexual activities, and from reports of physiologic experiments. The Read data came from his report of 516 consecutive labors published in Lancet (1949), as well as from his books (1944, 1950a, 19506). He made every effort to keep women free from fear or disturbance in labor and thus uninhibited. Much of the birth data is also corroborated by films taken of women undergoing natural childbirths or, more recently, of women using a similar technique called psychoprophylaxis. Since in this country it is the custom to move, strap down, and otherwise disturb even unmedicated women as they approach the birth climax, the behavior noted by Read is not so frequent nor so pronounced here. My analysis (Newton 1955) of the Read (1944, 1949, 1950a 19506) and Kinsey et al. (1953) data specifically showed these comparisons: Another physiologic similarity was pointed out to me recently. While speaking at an Ob-Gyn Postgraduate Course at the American College of Surgeons 1970 Annual Clinical Meeting, I mentioned that it is possible for women to have a marked emotional reaction to birth. After the talk Dr. Evan Evans of Ogden, Utah, came up to me. He said he had noted in some of his patients marked clitoral engorgement which begins about the time the cervix is 8 or 9 cm dilated and lasts until about the time the episiotomy is sewed up. He has noticed this phenomenon especially since he has encouraged husbands to be in the delivery room. His patients deliver, after having attended parents' classes. They receive paracervical and pudendal block, which is sufficient without other medication to carry them through the last part of labor. …