Nothing kills the temper fairly like seeing blood in your sheets. Except you’ve gotten your interval, and due to this fact a transparent thought of why you’d be bleeding throughout intercourse, your thoughts might spiral as you surprise WTF is happening.
However discovering a bit blood in your sheets throughout and even after intercourse (a.okay.a. postcoital bleeding) is frequent: It impacts as much as 9% of ladies, and most often it’s no biggie—particularly if issues obtained tough. “Typically, it’s not a trigger for concern,” Jacques Moritz, MD, an ob-gyn and medical director of Tia Clinic in New York Metropolis, tells SELF.
That mentioned, there are essential clues that may assist you determine what’s inflicting you to bleed—like the place you’re in your cycle and the way typically you discover blood—and whether or not sex-related bleeding might be an indication of a well being situation. Beneath, ob-gyns clarify why you may expertise some recognizing throughout intercourse and when blood in your mattress warrants a check-in together with your physician.
Is it regular to bleed throughout or after intercourse?
If you happen to haven’t but hit menopause, sporadic, gentle bleeding after intercourse is normally nothing to fret about. The reality is, there are a handful of issues that may make you extra susceptible to bleeding throughout your reproductive years.
For starters, you’ll have a cervix that’s particularly delicate to the touch (which is extra frequent in younger individuals) or be approaching your interval. “If you happen to’re near the interval, two or three days earlier than, [some bleeding is] form of to be anticipated,” Dr. Moritz says. “The uterine lining will get so thick, and when the uterus strikes round lots throughout intercourse, some cells will come off.”
Merely taking hormonal contraception may also make you extra inclined to bleeding a bit throughout vaginal intercourse—particularly if the intercourse is especially enthusiastic. The rationale: Some contraceptives, just like the capsule, might trigger vaginal dryness, and once you’re missing moisture down there, added friction could cause the pores and skin to interrupt and bleed.
However there are some instances the place the blood is usually a signal of a bigger situation. If bleeding is heavy, persists properly after your post-sex pee, or occurs each time you’ve gotten intercourse, it may be an indication of a extra critical situation like a tear, fibroid or polyp, or, hardly ever, most cancers.
Bleeding throughout intercourse turns into much less regular when you hit menopause. Throughout your reproductive years, there are numerous seemingly (and quite common) explanations for it. However once you’re now not menstruating or taking contraception, the listing of potential causes of bleeding dwindles, and there’s a higher probability that one thing extra critical—like endometrial or cervical most cancers—is responsible. So your physician will wish to learn about any bleeding earlier than or after intercourse (or typically) ASAP to allow them to resolve if extra testing is required. Sure, even when it occurred just one time and was short-lived.
That’s to not say bleeding postmenopause is at all times attributable to most cancers. The extra seemingly state of affairs is that you just’re coping with vaginal dryness, Sherry A. Ross, MD, an ob-gyn in Santa Monica, California, and writer of She-ology: The Definitive Information to Ladies’s Intimate Well being. Interval, tells SELF. Vaginal dryness on this age group (thanks, hormones!) could cause tears and generally bleeding after intercourse, Dr. Ross explains. A fast go to together with your ob-gyn can assist you identify what’s happening and make sure that you detect any well being points early on.
Can hitting the cervix trigger bleeding?
The brief reply: Sure, positively. The lengthy reply: Throughout intercourse, your accomplice’s penis, finger, or intercourse toy might hit your cervix, the slender passage that sits in the back of your vaginal canal and connects it to the uterus. For some individuals, this feels pleasurable—nevertheless it may also be painful (and a bit bit bloody), particularly if the penetration was tough or deep.