Whitney Port On How Giving Birth Changed Her Body

After announcing that she was pregnant, former reality star Whitney Port began documenting her pregnancy and experiences as a new mother through a YouTube series, I Love My Baby, But, in which she's documenting the less-glamorous moments in her parenting journey from pregnancy through to breastfeeding and beyond.

Last week, Port posted a new video for her series (titled "I Love My Baby, But I Wish My Body Didn't Have To Change"), all about how she's been adjusting to the way childbirth affected her physically — specifically, the changes she went through "down there."

Port, who gave birth to her first child, Sonny, in July, said that she's had a hard time recovering from vaginal birth.

"Having a vaginal delivery changes everything down there and that’s just something that’s really not discussed," she said. "Like what it’s actually going to do and that there’s a really long recovery afterwards. It’s painful and uncomfortable and along with having to take care of a newborn, you also have a whole other situation to take care of."

Port also discussed how birth changed her sex life with husband Tim Rosenman.

"You’re pushing, for me, an eight-pound baby out of a little teeny hole and…I was obviously concerned about what that was going to do to our sex life," she said said. "If it would feel the same, if [Tim] would feel the same way. I thought a lot about if [Tim was] attracted to me, and that was hard, because I was never insecure about that before."

Port's postpartum sex anxieties are common — even if your doctor has given you the go-ahead for sex (typically during a six-week check-up), it isn't always easy to get back in the sack after giving birth.

"Take your time," Jennifer Conti, MD, an Ob/Gyn and clinical assistant professor at Stanford University, told Refinery29 earlier this year. "I think there’s power in giving women permission and making sure they hear that."

Welcome to Mothership: Parenting stories you actually want to read, whether you're thinking about kids right now or not, from egg-freezing to taking home baby and beyond. Because motherhood is a big if — not when — and it's time we talked about it that way.