Let’s talk about sex, baby! Specifically, the best sex positions for pregnant women. Finding the perfect sex position can be stressful enough with your partner. Now, try doing that with a bun in the oven. It’s bad enough that you could be uncomfortable and exhausted, or your sex drive is through the roof due to hormonal changes. So often, many parents are afraid of “hurting the baby/babies” or not being able to perform as they did before pregnancy. But understand that a baby stops nothing, especially keeping those sparks alive in the bedroom.
But what are the best sex positions for pregnant women, and do those positions only cater to people in specific trimesters? Luckily, birthing expert, teacher, and founder of Empowered Black Doula, Keshia Lockett, is here to answer some of our most pressing questions about the best sex positions for pregnant women, including women who may not be able to engage physically. Keshia explains that the task may not be the easiest, but it’s very doable and worth it, no matter what trimester you’re in.
Here are Keshia’s tips and tricks for having sex safely while pregnant.
What To Know About Sex During Pregnancy
"The best advice I can give is that it will not hurt you when you have sex while pregnant. The biggest thing to understand is that your baby is protected. Your baby is in the uterus. Your baby is surrounded by amniotic fluid, and there is no way for your partner to get that far up to harm your baby.
"And there is another barrier protecting your baby from that [which] is your cervix. Your cervix is down extremely low into your pelvis, another way you’re protected. So you can cross that off [your list of concerns] because there is no way to reach the baby. And you should be able to enjoy it as much as you want to enjoy it."
Sex During the First 3 Months of Pregnancy
"Before your belly grows, you have a free for all. You can pretty much do the same sex positions you were doing before pre-pregnancy. Everyone is different; some people’s [belly] start showing much earlier than others."
After the First Trimester: The Best Sex Positions To Try While Pregnant
1. Reverse cowgirl
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"When you’re on top but facing the opposite of your partner. That’s a very comfortable position, and you’ll have more control. You can control everything while also being more comfortable. Your belly isn’t on them too much, and they’re also comfortable."
2. Spooning
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"[For spooning,] you’ll want to lay the leg you’re lying on straight and your other leg up. And [you can] rest the raised leg on your partner for additional support."
3. Cowgirl
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"Another one where you’re on top and in control. [Control in terms of the level of penetration and motion of straddle.]"
4. Edge of the bed (table top)
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"[In this position,] your body is at the edge of the bed but not too much on your back. There are blood vessels in your back, and laying on your back while pregnant can cause breathing issues with the placenta, you, and the baby. So, I would suggest tilting to the side."
5. Doggy style
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"Everyone loves this one, and it’s the easiest one, too, because your belly isn’t in the way of this position."
How to Use Sex Toys During Pregnancy Safely
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"[During pregnancy], you can enjoy [sex] toys as much as you want to. And for many women, towards the end of their pregnancy, sex is uncomfortable. Sex toys provide you and your partner options when penetration isn’t as comfortable.
"Sex releases oxytocin, the primary hormone that makes you go into labor. I have had clients call me to tell me they were in labor and had sex the night before. So, therefore, using sex toys can release those hormones and put your body in labor.
"Sex can be achievable and pleasurable for everyone. Even rough sex is okay unless a woman is diagnosed with a short cervix. Then she has to avoid rough sex, or else she can go into preterm labor. And sometimes, their doctor will prohibit sex altogether and want their patient to stay away from an orgasm. If that is the case, she and her partner can focus on clitoris-stimulating toys, which is another reason sex toys are great.
"Unfortunately, Black women are more at risk for developing a short cervix, and having it can stop you from doing many things you enjoyed before pregnancy."
In addition to all of the insightful information Keshia provided, she also wants women to know that if they're at a stage of their pregnancy where they do not want sex as much or at all, there are other options for intimacy – dates, foot massages, baths together, etc.
Lastly, couples should listen to each other, listen to their bodies, and not be afraid to ask their doula or medical provider questions. That is what they are there for.
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Those rumors were more than laid to rest when Jodie and Joshua went to the 2023 Oscars together earlier this year, and even more recently, when they celebrated her birthday together last month during the September unveiling of the Lotus Emeya.
Jodie Turner-Smith celebrates her birthday with husband Joshua Jackson at the unveiling of the new fully-electric Lotus Emeya on September 07, 2023 in New York City.
Brian Ach/Getty Images for Lotus
Despite seeming particularly happy and in love, perhaps the writing was already written on the wall even then. In the past, Jodie has been very celebratory publicly about her love for her estranged husband, even boldly recounting their love story for the books in a 2021 interview with Seth Meyers.
When Jodie and Joshua met, it was while at his birthday party in 2018. Their relationship was hot and heavy from the start, with Jodie openly noting that they began as a "one-night stand." During her 2021 interview with Seth Meyers, she jokingly referred to their love story as a "three-year one-night stand." She shared:
"First of all, I saw him before he saw me and when I saw him, I was like, 'I want that.' And then when he saw me, I just pretended like I didn't see him. He had to yell across the room to me, and I was wearing this T-shirt from a movie called Sorry to Bother You and [actress] Tessa Thompson plays a character called Detroit, and she has this T-shirt that says, 'The Future Is Female Ejaculation.'
"And so, he shouts across the room, 'Detroit!' He comes over and… does this really cute, charming thing that he does and just all night -- he just basically followed me around the party."
The couple were together from that moment forth, and even made things "Instagram official" less than two weeks later while on a dinner date. Joshua would later clarify to Insider that the night they met in 2018 was not a 'one-night stand' or a 'three-year one-night stand' like his then-wife joked but instead, it was "technically a three-night stand."
"It was sealed with a kiss that night and then we didn't leave each other's sides for, well, three years now," Joshua continued at the time.
In a July 2021 interview with Jimmy Fallon, Joshua dropped more details about the why behind getting married. He revealed that he didn't know he wanted to get married to Jodie until "the moment she asked me."
"She asked me on New Year's Eve. We were in Nicaragua. It was very beautiful, incredibly romantic, we were walking down the beach and she asked me to marry her."
He added, "I did not know [she would propose], but she was quite adamant and she was right. This is the best choice I ever made."
Joshua Jackson Reveals Jodie Turner-Smith Proposed To Him
Jodie received quite a bit of flack for proposing to Joshua because it goes against tradition and what society sees as acceptable for a woman to do to a man, and proposing isn't one of them. No matter how much time has passed, the viewpoints around who should do the proposing and who should be proposed to are still very traditional.
After being on the receiving end of such backlash, Joshua would later clarify to the media in a separate interview that it wasn't just Jodie's proposal to him that sealed the deal of them getting married, he proposed to her too. She might have initiated it, but Joshua followed through.
"I accidentally threw my wife under the bus because that story was told quickly and it didn't give the full context and holy Jesus, the internet is racist and misogynist," he explained to Refinery29 that same year. "We were in Nicaragua on a beautiful moonlit night, it could not possibly have been more romantic."
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He continued, "And yes, my wife did propose to me and yes, I did say yes, but what I didn't say in that interview was there was a caveat, which is that I'm still old school enough that I said, 'This is a yes, but you have to give me the opportunity [to do it too].'"
"She has a biological father and a stepdad, who's the man who raised her. [I said], 'You have to give me the opportunity to ask both of those men for your hand in marriage.' And then, 'I would like the opportunity to re-propose to you and do it the old-fashioned way down on bended knee.' So, that's actually how the story ended up."
Joshua and Jodie would eventually marry in December 2019. Shortly thereafter, Jodie gave birth to the couple's first child, Janie, in 2020.
In a recent interview with Elle UK, Jodie shared the ways becoming a mother to Juno helped to heal her of her wounds from colorism she experienced in the past. "It's interesting because I had a lot of resistance to becoming a mother and, throughout my life, I always said if I were to have children, I wanted to have Black, Black babies so that I could affirm them as children with the love that I felt I needed to have been affirmed with by the outside world," Jodie shared with the outlet.
She continued, "Then I fell in love with my husband and we talked about having kids. I did have this mini pause, where I was like, 'She's going to be walking through the world not only having an experience that I did not have, but looking like people that, in a way, I'd always felt a little bit tormented by.' Now that I've got this little, tiny, light-skinned boss, I feel like it’s the universe teaching me lessons. I've been given a daughter who looks this way to heal my own conversations around colorism."
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