sex during pregnancy

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what is the church’s teaching about sex during pregnancy? is it allowed or illicit?
 
Holy mackeral! I certainly am in trouble if it is!

Seriously though, sex used as a deepening of intimacy between married people is not wrong and the Church is first in line to teach that. Have fun!
 
If they are married and both are willing, then sure. Of course I have never heard anything on this from the Church though, just seems fairly straightforward. Most OBGYNs recommend it, or at least they used to.
 
the reason that i ask is that i read some old literature (cant remember what source) from the middle ages that the church condemned this act because it was considered pleasure seeking and a form of “wasting seed.”
 
spencer2 said:
the reason that i ask is that i read some old literature (cant remember what source) from the middle ages that the church condemned this act because it was considered pleasure seeking and a form of “wasting seed.”
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It is possible that one person wrote that but it doesn’t fit with what the church has taught as a whole. The marital act is both procreative and unitive.
 
As far as I know, the Church allows sex during pregnancy. However, this is provided that you are married to the person that you are having sex with. Also, if your doctor tells you that having sex could somehow hurt the baby growing inside of you and yet you continue to have sex while knowing this, you could be committing a sin by endangering another person’s life.
 
cant this be harmful to the baby?

I have just been taught it was wrong even though nobody told me about it. It just doesn’t seem to be… ehh I don’t know the word… hmm normal?
 
spencer2 said:
what is the church’s teaching about sex during pregnancy? is it allowed or illicit?
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Yes it is permitted in general.

Though *some * pregnancies are at risk…so in that case one may need it seems to abstain for at least a time…talk with the doctor…
 
Mr_Sun said:
cant this be harmful to the baby?

I have just been taught it was wrong even though nobody told me about it. It just doesn’t seem to be… ehh I don’t know the word… hmm normal?
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It’s only potentially harmful to the baby if you are at risk for going into pre-term labor as orgasm can induce small contractions. So it’s probably only potentially harmful like 0.5 percent of the time. The baby is well protected in the uterus which is far away from where the action takes place 😉 Why would it not be normal? To me it’s not normal to abstain from sex with your spouse for extended periods of time.
 
spencer2 said:
what is the church’s teaching about sex during pregnancy? is it allowed or illicit?
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So far, my response is the only one that offers a theological argument as to WHY marital relations during pregnancy is morally licit. (As some of you may know, St. Thomas said that it was morally illicit.)

For my theological explanation, based on the teaching of the Magisterium concerning the three fonts (sources) of morality and the procreative meaning of marital relations, see this page:

catechism.cc/articles/QA.htm
  1. May a married couple engage in natural intercourse during the wife’s pregnancy, or during her period?
You might also want to read the first two posts:
  1. What determines the morality of an act?
  2. What determines the morality of a sexual act?
One of the reasons that I wrote (am still writing) this series of questions and answers is because, when these type of questions are asked, often one person after another will present an answer, but none will give a theological explanation. It is not fair to the person asking a legitimate moral question to give an answer without an explanation as to why the answer is sound theology, or is the teaching of the Church. It is particularly disturbing when a post combines anonymity, an authoritative-sounding answer, and an utter lack of theological explanation.

Reasonable and faithful Catholics may have different opinions on a number of questions having to do with faith and morals. But I recommend giving the most weight to the answer that has the strongest theological argument to support it.
 
spencer2 said:
the reason that i ask is that i read some old literature (cant remember what source) from the middle ages that the church condemned this act because it was considered pleasure seeking and a form of “wasting seed.”
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The “unitive aspect” of marital relations is a modern construct. In the middle ages, the moral paradigm was that of the “marital debt”, whereby each spouse’s body was pledged to the other. During this period, the mainstream theological position was that marital relations during pregnancy was sinful for the spouse requesting payment of the marital debt, but not for the spouse who was merely honoring the request.
 
Ron_Conte said:
For my theological explanation, based on the teaching of the Magisterium concerning the three fonts (sources) of morality and the procreative meaning of marital relations, see this page:

catechism.cc/articles/QA.htm
  1. May a married couple engage in natural intercourse during the wife’s pregnancy, or during her period?
You might also want to read the first two posts:
  1. What determines the morality of an act?
  2. What determines the morality of a sexual act?
Click to expand...
this is** NOT **a recommended source of Catholic Theology.

Readers are recommended to see the Catholic Answers bookstore…
 
there is no teaching one way or the other, has someone given you reason to think there might be a problem with it?
spencer2 said:
the reason that i ask is that i read some old literature (cant remember what source) from the middle ages that the church condemned this act because it was considered pleasure seeking and a form of “wasting seed.”
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source please
 
The Church in modern times does not provide the teaching on sex in marriage you heard was found in the middle age. As I have heard it, children are the primary purposes of sex in marrige, but not the one purpose. Moreover, I doubt that the teaching you mention was in widespread use in the middle ages. There are some odd teachings in our own times; the fact that they exist now does not mean the people in general follow them.
It would be interesting to know that St. Thomas Aquinas said sex during pregnancy is illicit, and I would appreciate the citation to his writings for this. As I recall, though, one of his Marian teachings, I don’t recall which one, has been passed by with the centuries.
If sex were only allowable in marriage when pregnancy is possible, it would be immoral when a wife is past child bearing age. Someone saying that would have not gotten far. If someone told you that Catholics in the middle ages thought it was immoral to have sex when pregnancy is impossible, I expect that they did not correctly represent the views supposedly found in the middle ages.
 
Anyone who wants to explore what the Church taught in the middle ages should read Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe by James A. Brundage (see here).
 
The claim is false that the teaching on the unitive meaning of marital realtions is new or recent. St. Thomas and St. Augustine both taught that the marital act is ordered toward a threefold good, summarized as: proles, fides, sacramentum (offspring, fidelity, the sacrament). St. Thomas’ explanation of fides and more generaly explanations of marriage in the Summa clearly indicate the unitive meaning as one of these three goods.

“marriage is directed to the begetting and rearing of children, as well as to the community of life.”
newadvent.org/summa/5064.htm#article7

“Just as the marriage promise means that neither party is to have intercourse with a third party, so does it require that they should mutually pay the marriage debt. The latter is indeed the chief of the two, since it follows from the power which each receives over the other. Consequently both these things pertain to faith…”

“By sacrament we are to understand not only indivisibility, but all those things that result from marriage being a sign of Christ’s union with the Church. We may also reply that the unity to which the objection refers pertains to faith,”
newadvent.org/summa/5049.htm#article2

The terminology is different, but the unitive meaning is certainly indicated.
mdgspencer said:
It would be interesting to know that St. Thomas Aquinas said sex during pregnancy is illicit, and I would appreciate the citation to his writings for this.
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My mistake. St. Thomas incorrectly taught that marital relations during menses is morally illicit.
newadvent.org/summa/5064.htm#article3

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich has this to say about marital relations during pregnancy:

“It was explained to me here that the Blessed Virgin was begotten by her parents in holy obedience and complete purity of heart, and that thereafter they lived together in continence in the greatest devoutness and fear of God. I was at the same time clearly instructed how immeasurably the holiness of children was encouraged by the purity, chastity, and continence of their parents and by their resistance to all unclean temptations; and how continence after conception preserves the fruit of the womb from many sinful impulses. In general, I was given an overflowing abundance of knowledge about the roots of deformity and sin.”
Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary
 
Ron_Conte said:
The claim is false that the teaching on the unitive meaning of marital realtions is new or recent. St. Thomas and St. Augustine both taught that the marital act is ordered toward a threefold good, summarized as: proles, fides, sacramentum (offspring, fidelity, the sacrament). St. Thomas’ explanation of fides and more generaly explanations of marriage in the Summa clearly indicate the unitive meaning as one of these three goods.

“marriage is directed to the begetting and rearing of children, as well as to the community of life.”
newadvent.org/summa/5064.htm#article7

“Just as the marriage promise means that neither party is to have intercourse with a third party, so does it require that they should mutually pay the marriage debt. The latter is indeed the chief of the two, since it follows from the power which each receives over the other. Consequently both these things pertain to faith…”

“By sacrament we are to understand not only indivisibility, but all those things that result from marriage being a sign of Christ’s union with the Church. We may also reply that the unity to which the objection refers pertains to faith,”
newadvent.org/summa/5049.htm#article2

The terminology is different, but the unitive meaning is certainly indicated.

My mistake. St. Thomas incorrectly taught that marital relations during menses is morally illicit.
newadvent.org/summa/5064.htm#article3

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich has this to say about marital relations during pregnancy:

“It was explained to me here that the Blessed Virgin was begotten by her parents in holy obedience and complete purity of heart, and that thereafter they lived together in continence in the greatest devoutness and fear of God. I was at the same time clearly instructed how immeasurably the holiness of children was encouraged by the purity, chastity, and continence of their parents and by their resistance to all unclean temptations; and how continence after conception preserves the fruit of the womb from many sinful impulses. In general, I was given an overflowing abundance of knowledge about the roots of deformity and sin.”
Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary
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I’m really glad that belief in private revelations isn’t required, because I find this statement both highly offensive and theologically problemmatic. Taken at its face, it means that Mary’s parents considered legitimate marital relations as an “unclean temptation,” which I believe is at serious odds with Jewish understanding then or now. Intercourse during a woman’s period, yes, but in general - marital relations were considered a “good” in marriage, not an “unclean temptation.”

Secondly, her statement proposes that legitimate marital relations occuring during pregnancy somehow causes “sinful impulses” in the embryo/fetus/child. All of this sounds like Augustine on a bad day. Origina Sin, fallen nature, yes, but “sinful impulses” caused by parents’ lovemaking when they may not even know that the wife is even pregnant?

I also fail to see how the “holiness of children” is encouraged in a home setting where the parents withhold marital intimacy from each other. Seems to me that’s a recipe for a cold, bitter, emotionally-stunted home environment. All of this seems to me the product of the same kind of over-wrought, hyper-pious fear of legitimate marital relations that led St. Theresa’s parents to remain continent until counseled otherwise by their priest.
 
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