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When Is the Time Right for Postpartum Sex?

5 of 5 in Series:
The Essentials of Sex while Pregnant

After the baby is born, many partners look forward to resuming their pre-pregnancy sex lives as soon as possible only to learn that they must wait. For some (especially the fathers), this can come as extremely unhappy news. And even after the doctor has given the okay for sexual intercourse, the time may not be right for the mother. So how does a new parent know when it’s okay — and when it'll be right — to have sex again?

A woman can’t have sexual intercourse for about four to six weeks after birth, even if there were absolutely no complications during the pregnancy or birth. And even after that, the woman may not yet be ready for sex; new mothers often want to avoid sex for completely non-sexual reasons:

Physical factors. Having a new baby who gets up several times during the night is tiring.

Emotional factors. The sudden decrease of hormones caused by giving birth can result in a case of “the blues.” Psychological factors having to do with becoming a mother may also play into this condition, especially if this is the woman’s first child.

This can be a frustrating time for the father, but he has to learn patience. Keeping the lines of communication open is important so the new mother can let him know how she feels and when she may be ready to try to resume having sex. Certainly he should feel free to masturbate to relieve his sexual tensions. And remember: a refusal is not a comment on your sexual prowess, but on the sometimes-difficult adjustment to parenthood.

Some couples actually split up because they never resume their sex life after having a baby, so make sure that this never happens to you. If you need to make special arrangements, such as hiring a baby sitter and going to a hotel to get reacquainted, you should do so.

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ETFs and Initial Public Offering Investments

Want to take a real joyride? In 2006, First Trust Advisors introduced the First Trust IPOX-100 Index Fund (FPX). You can invest in an ETF that, according to the prospectus, tracks the 100 “largest, typically best performing, and most liquid initial public offerings” in the United States.

Just prior to the introduction of the fund, the index on which it is based clocked a three-year annualized return of 33.74 percent. Needless to say, with that kind of return, this new ETF got the attention of a good number of investors.

Those who jumped on board didn’t exactly have a smooth ride. When the market tanked in 2008, FPX lost 43.79 percent — almost 7 percentage points more than the S&P 500 lost. But in 2009, this fund gained 44.56 percent, and it has continued to outperform the broad market.

Thinking about plunking some cash into FPX? The future may bring more extreme volatility.

The rollercoaster of recent IPO ETF performance

When times are good for small and mid cap stocks, as they were in the three years prior to the launch of FPX, times are typically very good for IPOs. But when times are bad, you can guess what happens.

The index on which this ETF is based suffered terribly during the bear market of 2000, 2001, and 2002, with respective annual dips of –24.55 percent, –22.77 percent, and –21.64 percent. (If you started with $10,000 in 2000, you would have been left at the end of 2002 with a rather pathetic $4,566.04.)

A broader look at IPO ETFs

But what about the very long-term performance of IPOs? Jay Ritter, a professor of Finance at the University of Florida, keeps copious records on the returns of IPOs. Dr. Ritter asserts that, collectively, they haven’t done all that well vis-à-vis the broad market.

But he hastens to add that long-term performance is dragged down by the smaller IPOs, and that larger IPOs — the ones included in the IPOX ETF — as a group have modestly outperformed the market, albeit with greater volatility.

Indeed. As the IPOX Index now stands, tech stocks, volatile as heck in their own right, make up slightly more than 25 percent of the roster. The top three companies together represent nearly one-third of the index’s value. Do you really want that kind of swing in your portfolio, on top of an expense ratio of 0.60 percent?

Maybe you do. But if you are inclined to take such a gamble, please don’t do it with any more money than you can afford to lose. Of course, that’s true of all stocks, but especially of these youngsters.