Nothing kills the temper fairly like seeing blood in your sheets. Until you may have your interval, and due to this fact a transparent thought of why you’d be bleeding throughout intercourse, your thoughts could spiral as you marvel WTF is happening.
However discovering a little 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 usually it’s no biggie—particularly if issues bought tough. “Usually, 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 stated, there are necessary clues that may assist you determine what’s inflicting you to bleed—like the place you might be in your cycle and the way typically you discover blood—and whether or not sex-related bleeding may very well be an indication of a well being situation. Beneath, ob-gyns clarify why you would possibly 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?
When you haven’t but hit menopause, sporadic, mild bleeding after intercourse is normally nothing to fret about. The reality is, there are a handful of issues that may make you extra liable to bleeding throughout your reproductive years.
For starters, you will have a cervix that’s particularly delicate to the touch (which is extra frequent in younger individuals) or be approaching your interval. “When you’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 quite a bit 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 explanation: Some contraceptives, just like the tablet, could trigger vaginal dryness, and if you’re missing moisture down there, added friction may cause the pores and skin to interrupt and bleed.
However there are some circumstances the place the blood is usually a signal of a bigger subject. If bleeding is heavy, persists effectively after your post-sex pee, or occurs each time you may have intercourse, it may be an indication of a extra critical subject 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 a lot of probably (and quite common) explanations for it. However if you’re not menstruating or taking contraception, the checklist of potential causes of bleeding dwindles, and there’s a larger likelihood that one thing extra critical—like endometrial or cervical most cancers—is guilty. So your physician will need to learn about any bleeding earlier than or after intercourse (or generally) ASAP to allow them to determine 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 probably state of affairs is that you simply’re coping with vaginal dryness, Sherry A. Ross, MD, an ob-gyn in Santa Monica, California, and creator of She-ology: The Definitive Information to Girls’s Intimate Well being. Interval, tells SELF. Vaginal dryness on this age group (thanks, hormones!) may cause tears and generally bleeding after intercourse, Dr. Ross explains. A fast go to together with your ob-gyn will help you establish what’s occurring and be certain 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 associate’s penis, finger, or intercourse toy could hit your cervix, the slim passage that sits in the back of your vaginal canal and connects it to the uterus. For some individuals, this feels pleasurable—but it surely can be painful (and a little bit bit bloody), particularly if the penetration was tough or deep.