Sexual well-being and perceived stress in couples transitioning to parenthood: A dyadic analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The transition to parenthood encompasses several psychological and relational changes that might contribute to couples’ high levels of stress postpartum. Although common across the postpartum, couples’ sexual changes are frequently overlooked. We surveyed 255 mixed-sex new parent couples to examine the associations between sexual well-being—sexual satisfaction, desire, and postpartum sexual concerns—and perceived stress postpartum. Couples completed self-report questionnaires assessing perceived stress and sexual well-being. For both mothers and fathers, greater sexual satisfaction was associated with their partners’ lower perceived stress and, for fathers, this was also associated with their own lower perceived stress. For mothers, greater partner-focused sexual desire was associated with their own lower perceived stress whereas, for fathers, greater partner-focused sexual desire was associated with their partners’ higher perceived stress. In addition, greater solitary sexual desire and postpartum sexual concerns were associated with both parents’ own higher perceived stress. This study highlights the association between sexual well-being and couples’ postpartum stress, suggesting that more positive sexual experiences are linked to lower perceptions of stress across this vulnerable period. Couples’ sexual well-being may be an important target for interventions aimed at helping postpartum couples cope with stress. La transición a la paternidad implica cambios psicológicos y relacionales que pueden contribuir a niveles de estrés postparto de las parejas. Aunque son comunes en el periodo de posparto, los cambios a nivel sexual de las parejas no se tienen en cuenta habitualmente. Se examinó la asociación entre bienestar sexual—satisfacción sexual, deseo y preocupaciones sexuales postparto—y estrés percibido postparto en una muestra de 255 parejas de padres recientes. En padres y madres, mayor satisfacción sexual se asoció con un menor estrés percibido de sus parejas y, para los padres, también se asoció con su propio menor estrés percibido. Para las madres, un mayor deseo sexual centrado en la pareja se asoció con su menor estrés percibido; para los padres, un mayor deseo sexual centrado en la pareja se asoció con un mayor estrés percibido de las madres. Mayor deseo sexual solitario y más preocupaciones sexuales posparto se asociaron con mayor estrés percibido de ambos padres. Experiencias sexuales más positivas se asociaron con menor experiencia de estrés en el posparto, por lo que el bienestar sexual puede ser un componente importante para las intervenciones destinadas a ayudar a las parejas a enfrentar el estrés posparto.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".