title: Hormonal Contraceptive Use During Relationship Formation and Sexual Desire During Pregnancy.
abstract: Women who are regularly cycling exhibit different partner preferences than those who use hormonal contraception. Preliminary evidence appears to suggest that during pregnancy women's partner preferences also diverge from those prevalent while regularly cycling. This is consistent with the general assertion that women's mate preferences are impacted by hormonal variation. During pregnancy, women's preferences are thought to closely resemble those displayed by women who are using hormonal contraception. Here, based on this literature, we compared levels of sexual desire among pregnant women who met their partner while using hormonal contraception and pregnant women who met their partner while regularly cycling. We predicted that women who met their partner while using hormonal contraception would experience higher levels of in-pair sexual desire during pregnancy since these women will have partner preferences that more closely match those prevalent at the time of their partner choice. Our results provided support for the idea that previous contraceptive use/non-use may impact subsequent sexual desire for the partner during pregnancy. Pregnant women who met their partner while using hormonal contraception (N = 37) were shown to have higher levels of in-pair sexual desire than those who met while regularly cycling (N = 47). In contrast, levels of extra-pair desire were not related to previous use/non-use of hormonal contraception. These findings were robust when controlling for a number of relevant individual difference variables known to impact sexual desire. Our results contribute to our understanding of factors affecting relationship functioning during pregnancy.
authors.affiliation: School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK. kelly.cobey@stir.ac.uk.|Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8L6, Canada. kelly.cobey@stir.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kelly D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Cobey
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Havlíček
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Kateřina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Klapilová
authors.affiliation: School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK.
authors.forename: S Craig
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003268:Contraception Behavior; D003270:Contraceptive Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007989:Libido; D009042:Motivation; D011247:Pregnancy; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000187:drug effects*; D012747:Sexual Partners
chemical_list: D003270:Contraceptive Agents
keywords: Congruency hypothesis; Desire; Menstrual cycle; Oral contraception; Pregnancy