Exploring Postpartum Sexual Health in Nova Scotia Using Feminist Poststructuralism

After giving birth, postpartum individuals may experience many changes to their health, including sexual health. Despite being an essential component of health and wellbeing for postpartum individuals, sexual health is often discussed or defined in physically-focused ways, thus impeding health care support and services. As such, there is a need to move beyond the narrow approaches that currently dominate postpartum sexual health research, information, education, and clinical care to include emotional, social, and relational aspects of sexual health. No studies to date have explored the experiences of postpartum individuals with regards to their sexual health. Thus, the proposed study will address the significant knowledge gap by exploring how postpartum individuals experience their sexual health after birth. I will recruit eight to ten participants who are between one and six months postpartum and conduct interviews with them. Feminist poststructuralism and discourse analysis will be used to guide my research and analyze the interviews. This methodology will allow me to examine the meaning ascribed to sexual health in the postpartum period and to uncover how personal subjectivity, agency, and relations of power are experienced and negotiated. Findings will have important implications for informing how sexual health may be better supported and promoted during the postpartum period.