Pregnancy changes nearly everything about your body, including the way you experience intimacy, attraction, and connection. For some people, pregnancy brings a renewed sense of sensuality. For others, it can feel difficult to recognize themselves in a body that seems to change every day.

As a somatic coach and trauma resolution practitioner, I’ve seen how deeply our relationship with our body influences the way we experience pregnancy, intimacy, birth, and recovery. Feeling sexy during pregnancy isn’t about looking a certain way. It’s about feeling connected to yourself, your senses, and your ability to experience pleasure, comfort, and connection.

Sex makes babies. That’s obvious.

But if that were the singular purpose of sex, we wouldn’t have so thoroughly inquired into the “accessories” of sex, like scent, clothing, toys, and musical inspiration. Sex is ultimately a sensory experience and, therefore, a means of self-expression, communication, and enjoyment.

Can You Feel Sexy During Pregnancy?

Many pregnant people struggle with body image, physical discomfort, and changing expectations around intimacy. While pregnancy may change how you experience your body, it doesn’t mean sensuality, attraction, or connection disappear. For many people, pregnancy can be an opportunity to build a deeper relationship with their body and partner.

Feeling Sexy During Pregnancy

Pregnant people have access to different sensations and bodily experiences, which amounts to an enhanced state of sensuality. The high priority our culture places on standardized experience and appearance can wreak havoc on this unique experience for the pregnant person, their partner, and the relationship as a whole. How we feel about ourselves, physically or otherwise, determines the level of intimacy we can experience. Not the amount of sex or babies we’re able to have, but the level of intimacy and deep connection we have.

Related: 12 Things to Do as a Couple Before Baby Arrives

How Pregnancy Changes Body Image

Maybe you feel swollen and slow, heavy and irritated. But what about the sensation of taking a shower, the scent of your favorite flower by your bed at night, or the taste of your morning tea? Your sensual body is not gone from you, and the more you connect to your body again and again and again, through all of the changes, the more you connect to your power, to your baby, and the pleasure of being in a healthy and capable body.

As birthing bodies, we’re supposed to swell, stretch, leak, and tear. It’s actually a good sign! Being in a birthing body means having access to everything that makes life so precious. It’s temporary, changes whether you want it to or not, and is literally life-giving. You are a resource for nourishment and sustenance for your child, and the more you discipline yourself (let’s be serious, it takes effort to break free of the belief that we “aren’t sexy enough”) to be reverent of your own body, the more you will be revered.

Sensuality Is More Than Sex

Sensuality is not only about intercourse. It is your sense of smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing.

When it comes to the body, to feel the good, you also have to be willing to feel the not-so-good. Pain is part of having a body that feels pleasure, so if you fixate on what doesn’t feel good, “ugh, my ankles, ugh, my thighs, ugh, my back, ugh, my hemorrhoids,” you inadvertently numb yourself to the good things! Oh, my nipples! Oh, my shoulders! Oh, my . . . There are definitely still good things. You simply must permit yourself to ask for what you want.

Communicating Your Needs and Desires

Pregnancy is the perfect time to have that “never-the-right-time” conversation with your lover: “You know, it doesn’t feel very good when you touch me like that, but it feels really good when you do this.” “I need you to be still and hold me here.” “I want you to speak softly in my ear.” This clarity is only possible when you’re willing to engage more with your senses than with your appearance. This is where meaningful connection begins.

Sense your body, feel your feelings, notice your thoughts responding to your emotions, and express yourself. The way to freedom is through expressing your needs and desires, and if we feel shame — body shame, shame for wanting or needing something we’re not getting, we foster resentment.

Resentment is like a wall that blocks us from our own body. If you can’t feel your body, the possibility of pleasure in your partnership, pregnancy, and labor will elude you. Embrace the curve of your belly as proof of your adaptability and resilience. Relish the way it feels to rub your shea butter into your skin. Express verbally how it feels when your child moves inside of you. That willingness to stay connected to your sensual body is sexy.

You don’t have to love the skin you’re in to get pregnant, but when it comes to getting your baby out, feeling good in your body goes a long way toward an easier labor, not to mention your mental and emotional recovery.

Related: The 5 Love Languages of Pregnancy

Why Body Connection Matters During Birth

The connection you build with your body during pregnancy doesn’t stop when labor begins. In many ways, that awareness becomes even more important during birth.

The fact is that what gets the baby in also helps get the baby out: oxytocin. A revved-up engine gets you to the end of the road faster than a nervous one. And while there’s nothing sexy about a laboring body, it’s ultimately the power under the hood that gets you where you want to go. How you feel about yourself is the fuel to keep things moving smoothly.

Your willingness to be in the full experience of your senses, the smells, sights, sensations, flavors, and sounds of birth, relates us to our sexuality, to the pleasure of being in a body. During labor, this sensitivity becomes extremely helpful in easing the process. By staying present, you generate enough momentum and power to ride the waves of each contraction to push your baby into their first breath.

Final Thoughts

Pregnancy changes your body, but it doesn’t take away your capacity for connection, pleasure, or intimacy. The more willing you are to stay present with your changing body and communicate what you need, the easier it becomes to experience pregnancy as something happening with you rather than to you. Feeling sexy during pregnancy isn’t about looking a certain way. It’s about feeling connected to yourself, your partner, and the life you’re creating.