Sex OK in late pregnancy

While there are plenty of activities pregnant women are supposed to avoid, sex apparently isn't one of them.

Sex in late pregnancy long has been thought to be a possible cause of pre-term delivery, but new research contends that sexual activity in the third trimester of pregnancy does not cause an increase in pre-term births.

In fact, say the North Carolina researchers, there's even a slight chance that sex might help a women carry her baby to full-term.

"If a woman hasn't been advised to abstain or isn't having other problems with her pregnancy, our study suggests that intercourse or orgasm during late pregnancy will not increase her risk of pre-term delivery," says Amy Sayle, a research consultant at the University of North Carolina.

Sayle and her colleagues interviewed almost 600 women, all between 29 and 36 weeks pregnant. An average pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. Of that group, 187 women gave birth prematurely, meaning before 37 weeks. Afterward, the researchers interviewed them about their sexual activity while pregnant. They then used the remaining 409 women as controls for the study, matching them to the other women by foetal age. This second group of women provided information about their sexual activity while they still were pregnant.

The researchers found no increased risk from sexual activity for women in late pregnancy, and they discovered a reduced risk of pre-term delivery that lasted two weeks after sexual intercourse or female orgasm, the study says.

But, Sayle cautions, "Our finding of a reduced risk of pre-term delivery does not necessarily mean that the sexual activity itself is protective."

One reason for the results might be that women with healthy pregnancies who are more likely to go full-term also are more likely to have sex, while women who have problems in their pregnancies and already face a higher risk of having a pre-term baby probably have less sex, she says.

Dr Linda Sung, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Nassau University Medical Centre says the study provides reassurance that sex during late pregnancy won't necessarily cause an early delivery.

But the results could be skewed, she says.

People don't necessarily answer questions about sex truthfully, Sung says, although she credits the authors with doing a good job "trying to answer some questions that are very difficult to answer."

And, she says, the women who delivered pre-term were questioned after childbirth so they might not remember details of their sexual activity as accurately as the group that was questioned during pregnancy.

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