It’s happened — your pregnancy test is positive. You’re elated while simultaneously terrified (or vice versa if it’s a surprise). If you’ve been trying a while, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for, and you don’t want to do anything to hurt the brand new baby in your belly. If you’re not too tired and burned out from all those romps you did the last couple of weeks while trying to conceive — and your hormones are now raging — you could be wondering, "Can you have sex the first week of pregnancy?"
If you’re worried and wondering if you can harm the maturing process of the fetus or "disconnect" the baby from the implantation, OB-GYN at Stanford University School of Medicine Leah Millheiser says to Romper in an email, "Absolutely not."
"The developing fetus is protected by the cervix and the amniotic sac," she says. "The cervix, which is the gateway between the endometrial cavity (where the fetus is developing) and the vaginal canal, is generally 3 to 4 centimeters long in early pregnancy, and a penis cannot make its way through a closed cervix and harm the developing fetus. Think of the amniotic sac as a shock absorber — therefore, vigorous love-making will not harm the fetus," she adds.
So no matter how wild your sexcapades get, the baby will be protected in the amniotic sac. But, according to Millheiser, there are certain situations during the first trimester when you probably shouldn’t have any type of sex.
"If the woman is having spotting, she should avoid sexual activity as the spotting may represent a threatened miscarriage," Millheiser says. "If a doctor places a pregnant woman on ‘pelvic rest’ during pregnancy, sex should also be avoided. This is often recommended if a woman has preterm labor or preterm contractions, cervical incompetence, early cervical dilation, or conditions related to the placenta, such as placenta previa."
As far as an orgasm causing a woman to go into labor, Millheiser says, "Toward the latter stages of pregnancy, an orgasm may cause some cramping — however, these usually don't persist; it would be rare for an orgasm to put a woman into labor."
Unless you have some high-risk pregnancy symptoms going on (as mentioned above), feel free to get it on during the first week of pregnancy, and throughout your entire pregnancy if you’re up for it. Who knows, maybe a little fun in between the sheets would be the perfect way to celebrate a positive pregnancy test and your lives changing.
