Ask the Pros
Birth Plans
Birth Stories
Bookstore
Boy or Girl
Cesareans
Chat Room
Complications
Doulas
Educators
Episiotomy
FAQs
Feeding Baby
Fertility
Finding a Class
Health
Interactive
Labor
Message Board
Monitoring
Newborns
Postcards
Postpartum
Pregnancy
Reviews/Awards
Search
VBAC
Week by Week

Ask A Childbirth Educator
Questions and Answer

Q.After you lose your mucus plug can you still have intercourse with your partner? Please can you answer my question? Also when do I have to stop taking baths is it after I lose my plug or after me water breaks? Thank you for your time to answer my questions.

A. You can still have intercourse with your partner as long as your waters have not broken. It does not have anything to do with your mucus plug. It is possible to lose bits of the mucus plug over a period of a day or so or even hours. You should avoid taking baths as well after your water breaks, though this taboo is beginning to fall by the wayside in some areas. If your caregiver is one of those who do not forbid baths once your membranes are ruptured, make sure you only use a completely clean and disinfected tub to reduce the possibility of infection. Losing part of your mucus plug is not necessarily a contraindication against baths either. Just make sure the tub is very clean and disinfected.

Karen Klimsak-Ungar, CCE has been a certified childbirth educator for Birth Works® since 1996. She is currently Managing Editor for the Birth Works newsletter, sits on the Birth Works Board of Directors, and serves on their National Trainee Review Committee. A happily married mother of two, she also continues to teach Birth Works classes as well as private classes.

Karen will answer your questions on fertility, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and babies. Her advice does not take the place of your practitioner. Personal answers will not always be possible.