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I'm Pregnant
Healthy Relationships During PregnancyOverview of Pregnancy

Introduction

By taking care of yourself and taking care of your relationships, you, your partner, and any other support people are creating a safe and secure place for your new baby to come home to. Find a guide below to assess if your relationship is healthy, unhealthy or abusive.

On this page, you’ll also learn how pregnancy can affect your sexuality.

Healthy relationships

You’ve likely had many different kinds of relationships throughout your life. There are relationships with family, friends, and co-workers as well as sexual or intimate relationships. Healthy relationships can offer support and comfort and improve overall health and well-being. Having a healthy relationship with your partner and others will help you feel supported throughout your pregnancy.

Understanding your relationship

When you think about your relationship with your partner or others, it might be helpful to think about what makes a relationship healthy, unhealthy or abusive. Sometimes stress, family changes or the responsibilities of having children can lead to conflict—and conflict can sometimes lead to family violence.

Family violence happens when someone uses abusive behaviour to control or harm a family member or someone they have a close relationship with. For some families, abusive behaviour may have started before the pregnancy. Often, it begins or gets worse during pregnancy or after birth.

If you’re not sure if your relationship is healthy, you can use the examples below as a guide. However, it’s also important to trust your instincts. If something doesn’t feel right in your relationship—and you feel safe to do so—think about making changes now. It’s normal for adults to disagree—but abuse is never acceptable.

Is my relationship healthy?

Sharing Feelings

Healthy

  • You feel safe, comfortable and strong enough to tell each other how you really feel.

Unhealthy

  • One person feels uncomfortable telling the other how they really feel.

Abusive

  • One person feels afraid to tell the other how they really feel. They’re scared of being rejected, abandoned, getting ‘put down’ or being threatened.

Communicating

Healthy

  • You listen to and respect each other’s point of view.
  • You make decisions together.

Unhealthy

  • One person ignores the other and doesn’t respect their opinions.

Abusive

  • One person treats the other with disrespect.
  • One person ignores the other’s ideas and feelings or makes fun of them.

Disagreements

Healthy

  • You have equal say in the relationship.
  • You show respect to each other even when you have disagreements.
  • You work things out together, so you both get what you need.

Unhealthy

  • Disagreements often turn into fights that include yelling, criticism or harsh words.

Abusive

  • One person is afraid to disagree because they do not want the other to get angry or violent.
  • The disagreement is used as an excuse for abuse.
  • One person controls the money and prevents the other from spending money they’ve earned, accessing bank accounts or being part of financial decisions.

Intimacy and Sex

Healthy

  • You’re honest about how you feel about being physical and having sex.
  • Neither of you feels pressured to do anything you do not want to do.

Unhealthy

  • One person is embarrassed to say how they feel or what they need.
  • One person may go along with things that they may not be comfortable with.

Abusive

  • One person ignores the other’s needs and wants.
  • One person may be pushed into doing things that make them feel uncomfortable, afraid or ashamed.

Trust

 

Healthy

  • You trust each other.
  • You are comfortable with each other spending time with other people.

Unhealthy

  • One person feels jealous when the other talks to or spends time with someone else.

Abusive

  • One person accuses the other of flirting or having an affair.
  • One person orders the other not to talk to other people.

Time Alone 

Healthy

  • You can spend time alone and think of this as a healthy part of the relationship.

Unhealthy

  • One person thinks there may be something wrong if the other wants to do things without them.
  • One person tries to keep the other to themselves.

Abusive

  • One person doesn’t let the other spend time doing things on their own because it’s seen as a threat to the relationship.
  • One person may monitor the other person’s activities and isolate them from family and friends.

Verbal

Healthy

  • You value the differences between each other and work to be non-judgmental.
  • You both try hard not to talk harshly to or about each other.

Unhealthy

  • There have been a few times when harsh words are used, and one partner felt at risk of harm.
  • There’s no clear pattern of abuse.

Abusive

  • There’s a pattern of increasing or ongoing verbal or psychological abuse. This may include damaging belongings, name calling, and threats to hurt or kill you, a family member or pet.

Violence

Healthy

  • There’s no physical violence or threat of violence in the relationship.
  • Neither partner feels at risk of being hurt or harmed.
  • Both partners behave in ways that keep the other safe (safer sex practices, financially responsible).

Unhealthy

  • There have been a few times when one person felt at risk of harm.
  • There’s no clear pattern of abuse or violence.

Abusive

  • There’s an increasing or ongoing pattern of pushing, slapping, shaking, choking, punching or forced sexual contact.

Table adapted from Alberta.ca/EndFamilyViolence. Information available in multiple languages.

 

What is abuse?

Abuse is any behaviour used to control another person’s actions. Abuse can happen to anyone, whether you’ve experienced abuse in the past or not. If you grew up with abuse, this behaviour may seem normal to you. However, abuse puts the person being abused and their baby’s health at risk. If the violence or threat of violence has happened once, it’s very likely to happen again. It often gets worse over time, happens more and more often and is more intense. It often develops into a cycle of abuse. Not all abuse fits this cycle. Often, as time goes on, the ‘honeymoon phase’ disappears. If the image seems familiar to you, there is help available.

Diagram showing cycle of abuse. Arrows cycle clockwise through: (A) tension building (longest phase: minor incidents of physical/emotional abuse; victim feels growing tension; victim tries to control situation to avoid violence; victim cannot control abuser and is ‘walking on egg shells’); (B) explosion (the actual abuse. Abuse can be physical, sexual, emotional, verbal or financial), and (C) honeymoon phase (abuser is sorry and apologetic; abuser makes promises; idealized and romantic. This phase often disappears with time). Denial is at the centre of the cycle. Denial minimizes the abuse or means acting as if it did not happen. Denial keeps the cycle going.
Tap or click image to expand

Staying safe and getting support

It’s okay for adults to disagree, but nobody deserves to be abused or to see abuse. Many people who are abused stay in a relationship to keep their home and family together. However, children who see abuse are harmed by it. No one has the right to abuse another person whether they are an adult or a child.

There are programs for families and partners who have experienced abuse and for those who abuse. There’s help for everyone in the family.

If you’re experiencing abuse, talk with someone like a friend, family member, health care provider or other support person. There are many ways you and your family can get help:

Healthy sexuality

Sexuality

Healthy sexuality is part of a healthy relationship. Sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves as sexual beings. You may go through changes during pregnancy that can affect your emotions and sexuality. You may be concerned about:

  • feeling tired, having nausea or sore breasts
  • changing levels of sexual desire, like feeling more or less desire. This can be related to your energy and hormone changes, especially in the second trimester.
  • your body’s changing shape and size

Talking about your feelings with your partner may help you to understand each other’s needs.

You have the right to decide to have sex or not. Talk with your partner about consent.

Couple sitting outside, looking at one another and smiling.

People show their sexual desire in many ways, not just through sexual intercourse. Intimacy and caring for one another also includes cuddling, hugging, kissing and showing tenderness towards each other.

Sexual intercourse is safe during pregnancy unless your health care provider recommends you should not for medical reasons. Your baby is protected by the abdomen, the walls of the uterus and is cushioned by amniotic fluid.

It’s normal to have Braxton-Hicks contractions during sexual activity, especially during orgasm or when the nipples are stimulated.

Safer sex

Practice safer sex, even when you’re pregnant. Safer sex is about protection from STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections). You can pass an STI such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, syphilis, genital warts, HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) or HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) to your baby during pregnancy and birth. STIs during pregnancy may also cause miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight and stillbirth. You’ll be offered routine testing for STIs. Practicing safer sex will reduce your chance of getting an STI.

You’re practicing safer sex when neither you nor your partner are having a sexual relationship with anyone else, you’ve both been tested for STIs and the tests show that neither of you have an STI.

STIs can be spread by people who do not know they’re infected. Use a condom every time during vaginal, anal and oral sex until you’re sure that neither you nor your partner have an STI. The only certain way to prevent an STI is to have no sexual contact (abstinence), including vaginal, anal or oral sex.

To learn more about safer sex call Health Link at 811, your health care provider or visit MyHealth.Alberta.ca – Sexually Transmitted Infections.