Sexuality and Motherhood: Why Feeling “Touched Out” Is Normal
Congratulations, you’ve become a mother either for the first time or over again. In many ways, this is an exciting time, filled with joy, fulfillment, and so much love. In other ways, it can be one of the loneliest times of your life. Motherhood captivates the very being that is sacrifice and selfishness. It pulls you into a role where your body, time, and energy often feel claimed by everyone else before yourself. In that devotion, it’s easy to forget the woman who existed before “mom,” the one who still longs for sexual touch, intimacy, and her own identity.
At its core, motherhood is vanity: the audacious belief that your love, your body, and your being are enough to bring someone new into existence. It carries a selfish streak, the conviction that you have something so vital to offer the world that it should live on through your child. Motherhood is also the sense that choosing to nurture and protect your child often means unapologetically prioritizing their needs, and by extension, your role in meeting them, above everything else. Indeed, motherhood is complex, deep, and yet so rewarding.
Before motherhood, sex often carried its own kind of selfishness, the freedom to take pleasure, to ask for what you wanted, to indulge in desire. In motherhood, that same body becomes a vessel of giving: feeding, soothing, holding, sustaining. The shift from taking to giving can take over. When intimacy enters the picture, it’s no longer about your wants and desires but about meeting the needs of yet another person. Over time, this constant giving without reclaiming your own sensuality can leave you not just exhausted, but utterly touched out.
What Does “Touched Out” Mean?
Touched out, or skin satiated (as opposed to skin hunger), is the idea that you are in sensory overload and become physically uncomfortable at the thought or act of physical touch (even hugging or hand holding). As humans, we need physical touch. There is a special kind of exchange that happens through skin-to-skin contact, as you know from all the research you’ve done on bringing a baby into this world. However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Your body becomes overstimulated, which can be exhausting. It’s too much for your brain to process all at once.
While your beautiful baby has been engulfed in your body’s womb, loving the warmth, reassuring sounds of your voice and heart, they now crave that same level of closeness. You on the otherhand, who has been out of the womb for years, and has gotten used to a certain level of physical touch have now ramped up how much you are touching, how much your brain is functioning (think: when was the last time you fed the baby, have I showered this week, how many times have they peed today?), and challenging yourself with something brand new: motherhood. While all of these things can be rewarding on their own, together they can become quite overwhelming to the human body and mind.
Consider just how much your body gives in a single day. From holding the baby, breastfeeding (if applicable), carrying the mental load of the household, being emotionally triggered by your baby’s cries, giggles, and everything in between, your body is taxed.
The Roommate Phase in Parenthood
Your brain easily finds solace in, or maybe reassurance, in maintaining your daily routine. Cooking breakfast, getting to work, the baby’s schedule, getting dinner on the table, bath, bedtime routine, maybe squeeze in a shower, then do it all over again. Routine creates predictability, but it also takes away spontaneity, something a touched out mom would become more stimulated with.
Spontaneity often breeds play, fun, and eroticism between couples. So, when you take that away and fall into a routine, you also may lose intimacy and step into the roommate phase of your relationship. You handle day-to-day tasks together. You get along. However, the spark, the zest, the full body sensation while you’re taking your partner in and thinking of what you want them to do to you later is missing.
Yes, you are exhausted. No, you don’t feel like you have any time to yourself or with your partner to be lovers, and don’t get me started with the list that lives in your head and the mental load you carry. But this doesn’t mean intimacy is lost. It just means it needs to be reimagined in ways that honor where you are right now. Small, intentional shifts can help you reclaim pieces of yourself, reconnect with your partner, and remind you that you are more than the mental load you carry and the touched out feeling you live in.
The roommate phase is just that, a phase. And like all phases, it will end, especially once we understand how caregiving and sexuality overlap.
The Overlap of Caregiving and Sexuality
Before we jump into “fix it” mode, let’s first talk about why intimacy can feel complicated after kids. First, your body has physically changed inside and out. For those of you who had complications during pregnancy or birth, these changes may be even more extreme and difficult to comprehend for yourself and your partner. You may need physical therapy or surgery. The last thing on your mind is being sexual with your partner.
Physically, your physical anatomy has changed and may change back, but most likely will force you to accept a new body and mind. After birth, estrogen and progesterone levels plummet, which can lead to vaginal dryness, low libido, and mood fluctuations. Elevated prolactin (the hormone that stimulates milk production) suppresses estrogen and testosterone, often lowering sexual desire while the body prioritizes nurturing the baby. Many mothers experience a shift from “woman/partner” to “caregiver,” which can create a disconnect from their sexual identity and make intimacy feel secondary or even foreign.
Dissociation From the Mothering Body
Some mothers even experience disconnection from their own body (feeling like a caregiver, not a sexual being). Factors that impact this are mom’s trauma history, prenatal experiences, postpartum changes, overstimulation, and predispositions to touch and sensory stimulation. Dissociation makes it incredibly difficult to get in touch with your desire and need for intimacy if you don’t even feel like you’re in your body, let alone use it as a pleasure source.
Reconnecting With Yourself and Your Partner
So, while all of this is normal for women to go through postpartum, it’s usually not fun and would rather be avoided, which is probably why you’ve read this far. There are many ways to reclaim body autonomy and regulate sensory input. It’s important to have clear communication, self-compassion, and be able to set boundaries. One helpful mindset shift to open yourself up to is the idea that Esther Perel touches on, that eroticism isn’t about togetherness, it’s actually about the space between partners and what can happen in that space.
Intimacy doesn’t have to be intercourse. It can consist of so much more. I invite you to get curious with yourself for what intimacy can look like outside of the bedroom. What do you desire, long for? What excites you? What reinvigorates your body and invites you back into it?
Five Ways to Keep the Erotic Spark Alive Without Having Sex
- Sensual (not sexual) touch: hand massages, brushing hair, or a brush of the shoulder and a sexual look back as you pass in the hall
- Shared novelty: Research shows novelty strengthens desire by sparking dopamine and shared excitement, so try new experiences together as lovers not parents (cooking, dancing, exploring a new part of town)
- Deep Eye Contact and Presence – Give each other undivided attention, even for a few minutes. Locking eyes while holding hands or sitting in silence can reignite intimacy and vulnerability.
- Playfulness & humor: teasing, inside jokes, silly moments that reignite closeness.
- Written intimacy: love notes, texts, or journaling exchanges that remind you both of your connection.
- Cultivate Anticipation – Send playful or flirty texts throughout the day, share a private joke, or write a note that hints at your attraction. Desire often grows in the waiting, not the immediate.
- Play – Hobbies or nonparenting activities can invigorate you. Do something that you know is fun for the two of you, that will each of you to escape your parenting, caregiving role, and let loose
When to Seek Extra Support
The hope is that this article feels both validating that what you’re going through is very common, and empowering for you to shift out of the roommate phase and being touched out into a more erotic, sexual place with yourself and your partner. As discussed above, there are many different hormonal and psychological changes happening behind the scenes.
Some of these changes will feel too big to tackle on your own. You want to be on the lookout for signs that feelings may be linked to postpartum depression/anxiety. If your partner doesn’t feel safe anymore. If your partner is also overwhelmed, it may help to seek individual support as well as couples support. The last thing you want to do is overstimulate each other by unloading onto one another. By seeking professional help, you can get the help individually to bring back to the partnership.
Motherhood will always demand more from you than seems possible. But intimacy doesn’t have to disappear in the chaos; it can evolve. By permitting yourself to want, to play, to rest, and to reconnect in small but intentional ways, you remind yourself that you are not only a mother, but also a woman deserving of pleasure, presence, and desire. And when you feel touched out, remember: that touch is yours to reclaim.