Orgasms Experienced During Childbirth A Matter of Simple Science, Physicians Say

Orgasms experienced during labor made headlines back in 2009 when the documentary “Orgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept Secret,” was released. Now, three years later, new research is starting to back the film up, though many remain skeptical, according to director and child educator Debra Pascali-Bonaro.

“People see ‘birth’ and ‘orgasmic’ together on paper, and it pushes all their buttons sexually,” she said.

In addition, she explained that many women aren’t experiencing orgasms during labors because they are giving birth in settings where they aren’t able to move around as much as in natural birthing because of fetal monitoring systems.

However, a new report published in the journal Sexologies is among the first to attempt to gather hard statistics on the subject.

The study consisted of a survey that included over 100 French midwives who were asked to complete an online questionnaire regarding their experiences during their work. All told, the participants had performed a total of 206,000 births between them.

Of that number, the midwives reported 668 cases, or 0.3 percent of the total births, in which women said they experienced orgasmic feelings during labor, and 868 in which mothers showed signs of experiencing pleasuring during childbirth.

Only nine mothers total, however, said they experienced a full-fledged orgasm, however.

Barry Komisaruk, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University who studies orgasms, told LiveScience that he’s not surprised of some women experiencing orgasms during childbirth given the stimulation of the vaginal canal that occurs while a woman is pushing the baby out.

Dr. Christiane Northrup, a board-certified OB-GYN and author of “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” and “Mother-Daughter Wisdom,” further pointed out that in an interview with ABC that a baby coming out of a vagina is in the same position as a penis going in.

“And labor itself is associated with a huge hormonal change in the body, way more prolactin, way more oxytocin, way more beta-endorphins – these are the molecules of ecstasy,” she said.

Ultimately, as Pascali-Bonaro pointed out, it’s hard to know how many women are actually experiencing orgasmic births and that the numbers in the study are likely too low given that many women consider such experiences a private matter.