Ep. 6: The Sexpisode

Transcript:

There is no shame in feeling aroused if you have a letdown while you’re having sex. It does not mean that you’re going to feel that while you’re breastfeeding your baby necessarily. There’s no shame in your partner enjoying your lactation or even enjoying the taste of your milk. It, you know, like we said before, some of this is hormonal, but you guys know that sex and orgasms, like a lot of that is a head game for you.

This is Maureen Feral and Heather O’Neal and we’re midwives and lactation consultants here to talk to you about all things, lactation and boobs, body positivity, mental health. All the milky topics. So join us for another episode.

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. We are excited to talk about sex today, sex and breastfeeding. And we did get an email that we wanted to share with you first though. Because it was the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. So just, just for context, we’re recording at the time where we like just launched our podcast.

So even though this is going to get aired in like, three weeks or something. So we’re still gushing over absolutely every single review and email, and like, we will continue to do for the next like five years. Truth. And you know, when you first put something creative out into the world, of course you’re nervous about it.

And you just hope that people will respond. In a good way and definitely not a bad way. I’m kind of looking for any response though. Cause then I’m like, at least you heard it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that’s true. Even if I got an email that was like, fuck you. Like, this is the worst breastfeeding podcast ever. We’d be like a  listener! We reached somebody! But I just wanted to read this one because it was the sweetest thing ever.

And we got to give our listeners shout outs to the people that are giving us love. And it said, hi, Heather, just wanted to say, thank you so much for this podcast. I don’t see how to leave a review, so I’m personally replying to you to thank you. Which you are all welcome to do, by the way, you can email us at MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.com.

The information was so informative and you two are my kind of ladies. I love how hilarious you two are while keeping it real with drinking Rose and using real life examples  from what you two have experienced. I can’t wait to hear the next episode and will definitely make my husband listen in on the next one. Still waiting on my baby’s arrival so this will be an awesome resource for the next few weeks in preparation for all of the breastfeeding knowledge there is out there.

 You two rock this and I’m so grateful for the resource. Will you be sending out an email for each episode? Yes. Yeah, yeah. We love sending out emails. Yes. You can get on my email list, but the best way to do that is to just email me first, email me a topic recommendation of the podcast or, yeah, we love feedback.

We love suggestions. We love just your stories. If you guys have a story that you want us to read when it’s either in a mini-sode or when it’s like topically, appropriate. We can do that with your name, without your name. We can change your name. We can give you a silly booby name. Hmm. Yeah, we can. I want a silly booby name.

Can I, you know, we’ll be Tits McGee and I don’t know something anyway, we’ll get better at that. Okay. To be clear, I’m on call for a birth right now. So I’m drinking coffee, not Rose. And I’m not drinking Rose because I prefer Merlot. Cheers! Thank you. Thank you for not breaking my wine glass with your gigantic coffee mug.

Well, that would have been an exciting twist in this episode. We would have had to take a brief respite to pull it back together. Okay. So, like I said, we were going to talk about sex today. Yes. I’m pretty pumped about it. Where do we start? Well, I think the best place to start with anything that can be kind of confusing, yet heartfelt, deep, yet extremely shallow is with a story.

Yes. So we are lucky enough to have a first-hand account to share with you today. And this is from somebody that I worked with a couple of years ago. And I guess I’ll just start. “Hello, you breastfeeding fools. I’m writing because I’m concerned that I’m going to have a repeat of my negative breastfeeding and sexual relationship during my next postpartum period.

My first marriage was full of sexual pressure where having sex daily would have been a compromise. After my C-section my ex circled that six week mark on the calendar and had a countdown for when we were having sex again. He consistently expressed jealousy when I breastfed and made me feel so bad for not having any libido.

At one point, he told me I was selfish for breastfeeding because it decreased my sex drive. He said, “he’d done some research” with quotes around that, that said that breastfeeding ruins your sexual relationship. As you can imagine that marriage crashed and burned. I feel like we need sound effect for that, Heather.

However, I’m really nervous now that I’m pregnant with my second child, that this could happen again in my new marriage. Does breastfeeding really decrease your libido or was my ex-husband just an absolute douche bag? Tits up, Morgan.”

Oh, Morgan. I feel you girl. Yeah, don’t we all? Those are really universal fears, regardless of like any of your, you know, past relationships or experiences.

No to associate with breastfeeding, we’ve talked about it before on the podcast. But to recap in case you’re new here, hey new folks! Prolactin is the main hormone that our body uses to trigger milk production. And studies do indicate that it decreases libido. And that thing is either on or off. So the prolactin is either working and we’re in milk making mode or we are not.

And there are certain things that can turn on that switch for prolactin. So obviously breastfeeding. So nipple stimulation, emptying of the milk, your body is getting the message that we’re feeding. So yeah, that switches on. There’s also some rare times that you have a tumor on your pituitary gland that can be stimulating your pituitary gland to make more prolactin.

So if you have never had a baby and you’re lactating, that’s weird. You need to get that checked out. And then also some medications can actually turn on that switch by accident and make you lactate. So those are basically the top three ways that you will lactate. One of which is normal and the other two are not. So the switch is on or the switch is off.

Yep. So yeah, we, we generally kind of associate that with a lower libido, but that doesn’t mean everybody isn’t going to want to have sex while they breastfeed. The next one we can talk about may be oxytocin, another one we all think about with breastfeeding. As we’ve mentioned before, and we love oxytocin and we’re going to talk about her all the time, folks, so get comfy with it.

I love her. This is the love hormone, right? And it is involved with our milk ejection reflex or what some people call the letdown. And that changes the way that the muscle tissue, the muscle cells around our milk ducts act. And it helps us shoot that milk right out. But this isn’t the only time we have oxytocin.

It’s not like prolactin where it’s just about milk. Oxytocin is all over the place. It’s involved in, in all kinds of other non-sexual good feelings. It’s kind of all over the place every day for us. So it’s an interesting one. But we generally associate oxytocin with more pleasure, right? More pleasure.

More bonding, less stress. It’s actually almost impossible to have stress while you’re having a surge of oxytocin. Also, you have different receptors throughout your body, in these muscle cells that are responding to this oxytocin when it’s appropriate. So it’s, yes, it will help your muscle cells contract, but it’s specific to which muscles are being activated at that time.

So if you’re having sex and you have an oxytocin surge, the muscles in your vagina are going to contract. And that’s a whole different thing than when you’re breastfeeding and those muscles are being stimulated and those oxytocin receptors are the ones that are getting the majority of that hormone.

And then those muscles contract, and help your milk injection reflex. Which is why we don’t have a bunch of ladies sitting around drinking coffee at a cafe just breastfeeding and orgasming. I mean, although that would be lovely. That’s not what’s happening. Okay. So the third hormone we want to touch on is estrogen.

I love her. I love her too, but girl, we could use a little more of her while we’re breastfeeding. I look so pretty when I’m ovulating, because I have so much estrogen and my husband always comes up to me and he’s like, gosh, you look so pretty today and I’m like, stay away from me! It’s the estrogen! It’s just all that estrogen coursing through my veins.

Right. So let me just give you a little bit of estrogen history about what that’s about. So if you have a menstrual cycle, if you’re one of those people, you have an estrogen phase. And that estrogen phase leads up to your ovulation. Also estrogen promotes lubrication and you know, it helps your body get ready for sex, want to have sex.

And that’s because our bodies really are biologically set up to want to make babies with this menstrual cycle. Right. That’s what the whole dang thing is about. Primal. Right. Just to be clear, if you don’t want to have babies, that’s fine too. But your menstrual cycle really wants them every time. So that’s why we have this estrogen phase because it helps prepare your body and helps your body become more fertile.

Now, when you’re breastfeeding, we don’t have a lot of estrogen. Do we? No, dry vagina. Right? Not always, but usually probably the number one complaint. I really like Uberlube. They’re not paying us. I just really like Uberlube so much. And I have a very sensitive constitution let’s say, and I can’t handle anything flavored, scented.

Wait, wait, wait, let me just don’t put those things in your vagina people. Yeah, they will. Yeah, I know, but I’m just saying, okay. So if you’re breastfeeding, you’ve probably experienced a dry vagina and that’s okay. And that’s normal. And you should use all the lube that you want, but please consider an unscented, unflavored, water-based lube because we want your vagina not only to be lubricated, but also healthy.

We don’t want you putting weird chemicals, dyes, or sugars in there because you’re going to get an infection from that shit. A hundred percent, like all the BV, don’t do it. I’ve had all the BV. In college, somebody bought me this lemon balm flavored lube. I didn’t even have sex at the time. I thought that you were supposed to just use it for oral as if my vagina tasted bad and needed to be covered up.

And so I thought it was like standard protocol that like you had to put some kind of flavored shit on your vagina before you engaged in sexual acts. Lemony fresh, Heather. I’m so ashamed. Yeah. So you don’t need to do that. You’re fine. So Uberlube is completely free of dyes, scents and all of that stuff. No lemon zest.

And I always just tell people if you’re breastfeeding, just preemptively put some lube on. Because who wants to interrupt your sexy time to be like, Oh, I’m sorry. It’s not you it’s me. It’s my estrogen level. Let me just go lube up really quick. So it’s better to just preemptively do it. I mean, we just keep that by the bedside in my house.

Absolutely. Yeah. So you should too, where your children cannot reach it. Yeah. So I used to help out at the sexual education center at my college. And we used to frequently field the question of like how much lube is too much? And the answer is it’s not. There is not too much lube. So if it doesn’t feel like enough, just keep putting more on.

And actually here’s a little tidily bit because I have worked with some women who are more advanced in age who have decreased estrogen and they have, some of them have had some vagina issues where it’s like atrophy and the tissue is thinner. Yeah. Yeah. Estrogen helps with the elasticity of your tissue too.

It does. It makes it bouncy and pink and like very nice and squishy. So a lot of times a good combo would be an oil-based lube with a water-based lube on top and they will layer. So the water-based will probably come off more quickly, but then the oil-based will kind of stick on there a little bit better and give you a little bit more longevity in your sexy time.

Yeah. And the reason I usually recommend a water-based lube over an oil-based one is because of that, because it is hard to get out an oil-based lube. But if you’re planning some very extended sexual time with, you know, your lover, that oil-based lube is going to see you through it to the end .

And by the end we mean 15 minutes. I mean, you know, however long your baby naps, right? No, but, but really, yeah. More than five, we’re kind of talking about, is extended at this point in our lives. But yeah, so I hope you like, you guys listen to that and you’re like, okay, I get it. These like, you know, cool hormones, estrogen and prolactin, oxytocin.

Cool. Got the basics. Because we’re going to reference that a lot throughout this episode, as we talk about kind of the, the implications that this has. Heather, you read an interesting paper that we wrote some stuff down here from that we wanted to share with you guys. Yeah. So when I was looking at research, there’s not a whole ton of research because it’s only been very recently that anyone gave a shit about how women feel sexually.

Yeah. I know. It’s completely shocking, but yeah. Can you hear the sarcasm? I hope you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it used to be just a complete completely male focused event. Like women didn’t even need to enjoy sex. It was just purely physical for us, just, you know, physiological. Right. And also like, you know, at the time that a lot of the initial research about this was done too, this was entirely about the gender binary.

This was focused only on you know, people with uteruses who identified as women. So also completely excluded all kinds of queer and trans identities and relationships. So really limiting in that way, too. Right? So as usual, in our research based podcast, we are having a difficult time finding research that we approve of, because I mean, it’s just really hard to find in this realm of what we do.

And we were reading and I was like, wow, this one’s weird. Oh, this is a source from 1987 and 1992. This really isn’t a relevant article anymore. Right. It’s crazy. Right? So this one is from 2019 and they had 315 participants, which isn’t great, but it’s not something horrible. The average age of the women, only women, heterosexual women was 32 years old.

And the average gestation that they carry to was 39.1 weeks, which makes me think that there was lots of inductions. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, whatever. So this study took women’s F S F I scores, which is the female sexual function index. And that’s based on lubrication, arousal desire.

So it’s basically just a checklist. There was a couple other things. Right. It was just like a survey. I think it was about, pain, partners, partner satisfaction or something. And so you take this survey and you get a score. And so that score is your female sexual function index, your FSFI. And so then they looked at the women who were breastfeeding and they looked at women who partly breastfed and they looked at women who did not breastfeed.

And they did see a correlation between breastfeeding and a decreased FSFI score. Which, you know, when you’re first reading it, you’re like, Oh gosh, wow, thank God we read this. Now we finally know that breastfeeding causes low sexual desire, but that’s actually not what I got out of it. That’s I think what most people would think.

Yeah. They also mentioned that there is a significant correlation between that negative kind of sexual functioning and low partnership quality and maternal depressive symptoms. So those were two other big factors in there. But when I see something that says breastfeeding has a negative correlation with sexual function, what I see is our bodies working to protect us from another pregnancy.

Yeah. I mean, we are 100% primal at the core and one of the most primal things is reproduction and that shit runs deep. You know, every time, like you said, every time we have a menstrual cycle, whether you want to, or not, your period thinks it’s time to start over and try to get pregnant. That’s its goal.

Yeah. And, and lactation actually is protective against that because if our bodies just if every single human after they gave birth immediately got pregnant again, we would have some pretty chronic and severe pelvic dysfunction. Like we really commonly see things like prolapse issues when we don’t have babies spaced really well.

Yeah, that, and also increased miscarriages because of embryos implanting in uteruses that aren’t completely contracted back down to their normal size. So you might have an increased chance of having an embryo implant, maybe up way up high in the uterus, like up in one of the horns where it’s just not viable.

Sometimes it is, but mostly, it’s not. Yeah. And you know, if we think about, if we consider humans as animals, right, just one species of animal, and we compare our functioning of our pregnant and postpartum bodies and the functioning of our newborns, we’re in an incredibly, an incredibly vulnerable state through that whole process.

It was not very long ago within the span of human history that we had to deal with real physical danger every single day. So in order for our species to continue, we have to be able to protect these little completely helpless newborns. I mean, as far as animals go, our newborns are ridiculously, ridiculously helpless.

I mean, and I get it. Like our species in utero has prioritized brain development, so cool. And that’s great, but it means like the rest of a newborn’s body is like useless. They can’t, they can’t even hold on to us. Like baby monkeys can hold onto their mother’s backs while that adult monkey like runs full speed, swinging through trees.

Like what the fuck? Right. Our babies can’t do any of that. Like your body doesn’t know that your actual plan is to breastfeed and watch all of Downton Abbey. It thinks that you might still need to escape from a tiger at any given moment or climb a tree.

Right. Humans and like prehuman species spent a significant amount of time in trees. Which is actually gosh, now I can’t remember where I read this, but you know, that like startle you get when you first start falling asleep? I read that because my husband has it and I looked it up and I was like, it’s from sleeping in trees.

It’s from when you were a monkey. Right. Which is okay. Anyway. So anyway, the point is, for the most part, our bodies don’t want to be pregnant right away again. And there’s nothing like a dry vagina to stop that from happening. Right. And, and like there, there’s also the functioning of lactation amenorrhea, right.

Where most people don’t get their menstruation back right away if they’re lactating. If they’re exclusively breastfeeding, directly not pumping. Yeah. So, so we have, all of these factors, our hormonal levels. You know, all these different hormones are like conspiring to not get us pregnant in the postpartum.

Right. Because how hard is it? I mean, some of you are probably thinking like, yeah, I got pregnant the first time I ovulated four weeks postpartum. The first time we had sex and it sucked. Right. That’s hard. Right? Well, actually your fertility, weirdly enough, your ovaries are game. So your ovaries are all about it. They are always ready.

And all things being normal, your fertility actually increases right after you have a baby, technically in the ovarian sense, but your uterus and the rest of your body is not ready. Not game. Not ready, not ready. It’s like, fuck nah. So that’s why when people are like, I only did it one time. It’s like, yeah. And that little egg popped right out.

Because your body, it was like basically taking a jar of hormone marbles and just shaking it and being like, I don’t know, and opening the cap. I don’t know, maybe something will happen. And it landed and stuck. There we have that. Anyway, so that is one big factor in why we see a lot of you know, firsthand accounts and a lot of anecdotes about sex in the postpartum being less pleasurable, being difficult, low libido, stuff like that.

But we also have, I want to like kind of focus a little bit too. This study mentions low partnership, quality and maternal depressive symptoms. And those are not to be ignored. Yeah. Because I mean, just across the board, if your partner is unsupportive, you don’t feel safe.

So if we’re going, if we’re not even talking about like, he hurt my feelings. If we’re talking about like primal stuff, if you don’t feel safe and if you don’t feel like your offspring is safe, you cannot relax. You will have postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression, because that is your hormones telling you to get out. Like find safety.

And like we talked about before, oxytocin and stress responses are competitors, essentially in your neural pathways. And I know all of you, if okay, if you haven’t, you have to email me and tell me, but all of you have had a time where you wanted to have an orgasm, but you were stressed out about something and fuck, it just wasn’t happening.

And you just had to be like, stop to your partner. Like it’s not happening today. You could be down there until next Saturday. Yeah. And I’m still going to be thinking about my laundry list of stuff to do. Right. And so that’s a really good example of how sexual satisfaction, I hate, I’m not going to use the word functioning here.

Sexual satisfaction can be really influenced by the quality of your relationship. And you know, the state of your mental health? Gosh, we see so many postpartum mood disorders, Heather. And some of them are predictable. Sure. Because we’ve seen people that come into the clinic and we’re like, that relationship is already on the rocks. And we’re automatically worried and like, thinking about it because if a partner is jealous of you in pregnancy, because your libido does tend to start decreasing in your third trimester and it continues until four to six months postpartum.

And it is what it is, you know, I’m sorry, but that is not your main fertility time. That is a time for something else. And if you have a partner that is not cool with that from the third trimester on, that’s a pretty good indication that we, as midwives are going to have to start getting our ears up and thinking like, okay, this person might be a setup for postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, or something else. Or a danger situation.

I mean, Heather, I just came to your house today from an appointment with a client who is just at term now. And it was the first time that we had seen her without her partner. And a lot of that shit came to light, which, you know, it put me on alert for postpartum mood disorders.

I went back and checked her Edinburg scores. I went back and made sure we did them. And I made a mental note to myself. Like we’re doing consistent Edinburg screenings in the postpartum with this client. I mean, we usually try to, but to be honest, like sometimes we forget, you know. Sometimes I don’t look at my fucking checklist on the chart. And I really, yeah, I’m going to be looking for that because her relationship sucks.

And I’m so thankful that her partner couldn’t make it to this appointment because I don’t know if she would have ever told us that. Yeah. Yeah. And she might not have, but that’s another reason why those Edinburg’s, which is a survey that you take. And it basically just kind of rates different categories. Like, I cry three times a week.

Like that’s not an actual example, but that’s basically what it kind of is. Are you crying more often than not? You know, and it kind of seems dumb when you’re filling it out, but the recommendation now is to fill it out at every trimester and postpartum. So if you are that patient and you’re pregnant and you’re okay right now, still fill it out to the best of your ability and don’t blow it off because that is one of the actual indicators that we can use to follow you more closely to make sure you’re getting the follow-up you need postpartum. Because you don’t know when it’s going to hit and you don’t know how your partner is going to react.

And if you are a partner listening, please understand that you know, we’re going to give all the grace in the world because no one gets a textbook with their baby when they leave the hospital. You know, and I think people don’t really talk about sex that much when it comes to the postpartum period and what’s to be expected and your partner might do a complete 180 after they have their baby and it is transient.

Like that is one thing across all the studies, even the bad studies that we don’t approve of, they all say that it’s transient. And usually by six months it’s resolved. And if it hasn’t resolved, buddy, that might be your fault. Yeah. Or maybe that’s the time when you, as that birthing and lactating person say like, Oh, Wow. My libido hasn’t changed at all.

Maybe this is actually a symptom of depression or a thyroid problem. Yup. Now I do want to kind of take this to a different place with you, Heather, because I want to say that just because your hormones aren’t telling you to have sex doesn’t mean you don’t want to.

Right. A lot of people are like, what the hell? I still want to have sex, but like, I’m just not like my body’s not feeling it, but I still like, it’s fun. I want to do that with my partner. How do I do that? And you know, a lot of people then, or like when they get like your libido back at like four or five months, they’re like, Oh my gosh, I’ve never had sex while I’m like leaking milk all over.

 How do I do this? So, you know, we’re going to start with our number one tip, lubricate, lubricate, lubricate. And communicate, communicate, communicate. We should have a song about that. Lubricate and communicate, that’s our new t-shirt. You can find it on the merch website we don’t have. I’m totally going to design us a t-shirt. Anyway, it’s a conversation starter.

I’m going to wear it to all my postpartum appointments, so, okay. Those are your, those are your basics, lubrication and communication. But then a lot of people ask us like, what about my boobs, these lactating machine? Yeah. Everybody is a little bit different. Everybody’s let down response is a little bit different.

Some people have a really forceful let down and regardless of what kind of breast shape, milk supply, let down situation you have, this is a completely personal choice. We can tell you that we recommend putting a waterproof mattress cover on your bed and just leaving it there until your kid’s in kindergarten. I mean like really kindergarten? Like third grade. Third grade, maybe it’s just, I actually tell all my clients prenatally that they should put one on because they might pee the bed.

They might leak milk. Their baby is a hundred percent going to pee the bed. Yeah, they might have night sweats. Especially with boys, Oh my God. The boys are just bed wetters to the nth degree. He wet the bed this morning, but I did order a new mattress and I’m excited and I’m putting two waterproof covers on that sucker. Oh my gosh.

They’re not that expensive. So just go for it and stick it on there and protect your mattress. Okay. Anyway, so. Lubrication, communication, mattress cover. Yeah. So I think that when you bring your partner into the conversation and you show them how you feel about it, I think they mirror that a lot.

And in our breastfeeding group that we run on Facebook called Breastfeeding for Busy Moms, this was one of our biggest ever, most engaged with posts. And I asked if people wore a bra when they had sex during lactation. Did I say that right? I think it should have been while lactating. While lactating. And so the response was huge and, and hilarious.

And I think that what we really got out of this was that if you feel confident in your milk situation, coming out of your boobs during sex, your man is probably going to think it’s hot, or your partner is probably going to think it’s hot.

Let me just say, there is no shame in feeling aroused if you have a letdown while you’re having sex. It does not mean that you’re going to feel that while you’re breastfeeding your baby necessarily. There’s no shame in your partner enjoying your lactation or even enjoying the taste of your milk.

It, you know, like we said before, some of this is hormonal, but you guys know that sex and orgasms, like a lot of that is a head game for you. Oh, it’s all a head game. I’m convinced. Totally. And that’s why this action of say, a milk injection reflex, can be completely non-sexual with your baby and it can be super sexy, empowering thing during sex.

Yeah. And the, the underlying tone of all oxytocin is bonding. So bonding is never dirty and never bad, you know? Yeah. But I will say that I have found that, myself included, with a lot of my patients that have had a history of sexual trauma, are very worried about this. They’re very worried that if they breastfeed, they are going to get aroused and then have a trauma response from it.

And it’s already taken them so long to move past that trauma to enjoy sex. That it seems almost like a daunting task to be able to move forward with breastfeeding. Yeah. So in that situation, I just want to give you all some grace that have had trauma, which I think most people have of, you know, one in three women. That’s a lot.

But sometimes your breasts are the main event in your trauma. And I recommend, if you know, for sure, that you have that experience and you want to get pregnant or you’re about to breastfeed or you are breastfeeding and you’re not enjoying it. Go get some cognitive behavioral therapy because you could be enjoying sex and your milk let down and breastfeeding in different appropriate, compartmentalized ways.

And you deserve that. You absolutely deserve that. It’s not weird. No, it’s not weird. I want you to be comfortable talking to somebody about that. I think it’s also okay if you’re not there yet. And you know, my biggest piece of advice in the postpartum with clients when we’re talking about sex is to go slow and to listen to your own body and your own mind.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean go slow because the last thing that was in your vagina was a baby’s head, right? That’s one aspect of it, but also go slow because sometimes birth can be traumatic. Sometimes we’ve had previous trauma. Sometimes you might not have had sex for an entire year. You know, maybe the last time you had sex was when you made that baby. Or maybe it’s a different partner.

Yeah. So go super slow, communicate and lubricate, just going to, every time we can, have them  communicating and lubricating.

Also can I just read some of these hilarious comments? Okay. Sorry. Yes. Moving away from trauma and into humor here. So if you think that you’re one of those people that could never possibly enjoy sex while lactating, I just want to read a couple of these. These comments that were on that post. I just love them. They make me so happy.

So we’re going to leave all the names out, of course, but yeah. This girl said, when I was heavily lactating, I had let downs the first few times I had sex, sprayed him in the face. He tried to catch it. I feel like I’m there. See it, like at one of those restaurants where they throw food in your mouth? It’s like a hibachi lactation.

That’s hilarious. Some for you. And you know what, like, the takeaway from that is like, it’s okay for sex to be funny y’all. Oh yeah. I feel like sometimes people need permission to laugh when they’re having sex. I hope you laugh every time you have sex. If you haven’t laughed at a queef, then you’re missing out.

Okay. You read the next one. Okay. Okay. This one says after about three months, my let down wasn’t so forceful and we didn’t have a problem. Before that though, I soaked a bed sheet or two. Yeah. And it can be a lot. Like, you’d be surprised at how much milk actually comes out during a letdown. It’s actually like, a lot of people find if they’re in like a chest down position while they’re enjoying sex and then they move and they’re like, Oh, well, there’s that puddle I was just in.

 You could, if, you know, if you’re one of those people that really likes to bank every little bit that you have, you can put milk saver shells in your bra during sex, but that requires you leaving your bra on. Which if you don’t want to do that, and you’re just going for a wild, free Willy nilly time, then that’s not going to work for you.

I did tell a girl, you could try putting your haakaas on, but that would be difficult. So it’s like maybe if you’re on top, you can just really get the suction good on those? Maybe, or maybe it would just pop off and be a mess. Side note, if you guys, if anybody tries that I would love to hear about it.

Absolutely. That is the number one thing that we need to hear about next week. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So this girl says, yeah. I put my bra on. It’s not about the milk to me. My boobs are the least sexy thing to me, not the looks because that hasn’t changed. It’s just like, these are our child’s food. Don’t touch. I hate it.

Right. And that’s okay too. If for you in your like, you know, head game about sex, your breasts just have switched categories completely, and there’s no overlap. That’s fine too. No shame. You know, sex doesn’t have to be about your boobs. No, it doesn’t. And you know, honestly, my husband’s not a boob guy.

He’s not, he could care less. He could care less. He’s like, I like the legs. I like your crazy curly hair. I think mine is on the opposite spectrum from you there. And, and you know what, like in my relationship, lactation was sexy and it was, you know, it became a new, exciting part of our sexual relationship and that’s okay too. And you know what?

Some people have lactation fetishes and we don’t fetish shame here. No, I will say that that sometimes is the reason people are cautioned against posting breastfeeding pictures and whatever, but, you know, that’s because that’s a, non-consensual use of that. If it’s a consensual thing between you and your partner, and you’re both enjoying pleasure from that, awesome.

Yeah. And let me just quick note here. This is a tiny little soap box I like to stand on sometimes. Kinky is great, but the basis of kinky is trust. So if you don’t trust that person, it’s not kinky it’s abuse. So if you’re not consenting to it, if you don’t have a trusting relationship with that person, that’s taking advantage.

Being passively permissive is not consent. So stepping off my soap box, moving on to the next comment. I think we should add on the t-shirt, consent, communicate, lubricate. This is going to be a big t-shirt guys. I’m just going to X XXL. It’s going to have all the words on that, but gosh, it will be like a dress.

You’re making me old man laugh. Okay. So this girl says we had no idea that while we were getting our groove on the milk makers would turn on. And so the first time it happened, it squirted all over my husband and his witty remark was to say, now I know how it feels to be Superman, a superwoman, if you will. I just told him to hush or I’ll squirt him again. And we went back to business. Yes, girl.

Okay, go ahead . Okay. This one, I was a bra on for a while until my milk regulated, but only because I’m small chested and I wasn’t used to the size and them bouncing around during the action. He definitely is a bra off kind of guy and we made it work once I was comfortable. That’s awesome. Way to change. Way to adjust.

And that’s totally real. Some people experience a significant change in the size of their breasts. And, and I also want to mention too, you know, some people who are chest feeding postpartum might find the change, you know, with their mammary glands and the size of their chest to be something that’s triggering, unpleasant for them, causes some gender dysphoria.

You know, some small chested people who aren’t used to having large breasts might find that that just like makes them feel really weird. There’s no like right or wrong reason to wear a bra or something else that binds your chest while you’re having, like, while you’re having sex. If it makes you feel better then that’s what you should do.

My only caution is that we want you guys just to make sure you’re not restricting blood flow on your chest too much if you’re lactating, because that can cause clogged milk ducts, which can cause mastitis. Right. And that’s not sexy at all. That’s not sexy. It’s the worst. We don’t like it.

Okay. Read the last one. Last one. This girl is a bra on for me. I don’t like having my milk run all over myself. My husband knows they are not his right now, but he gets grossed out by bodily fluids anyway, so it works for us. You would think after three kids, he would get over the bodily fluid fear, but he has not.

Right. And that’s okay too. It comes back to communication and consent. And lubrication. Well, that’s it for us today, guys. Thank you so much. And of course, please subscribe so you don’t miss anything. We’re going to be talking about so many more things like pumping and bottle feeding, supplementing. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on whatever podcast platform you use.

And I think we’re on all of them now, although I’m not a hundred percent sure. Yeah, we are. Yeah, I think. And also if you love our podcast and you just think we’re the bee’s knees, you should check out our Patreon account. You can find The Milk Minute podcast on Patreon and consider supporting us, throw us a couple dollars.

We will just shower on the praise and give you goodies and all kinds of stuff. That’s true. And you can find all of those links in the show notes, along with our email address, which is MilkMinutePodcast@gmail.com, where you can send us all of your topic requests and comments about the episodes that you’ve heard.

And we just love ya. Thank you so much for letting us be here and listening to us. We really appreciate it. And we really do hope we’re making a difference for you and your partner. Stay sexy.

 If you’d like more information on today’s topic, or you want to check out the sources we used, you can find them in the show notes. Don’t forget to follow so you don’t miss a thing.