Pregnant women can orgasm in their sleep.

Now that’s something to look forward to.

We all know the down sides of pregnancy. Morning sickness that doesn’t know day from night and acne in places you have never seen before. Back pain, carpal tunnel, headaches, swollen extremities, stretch marks and those crazy vivid dreams. The list goes on.

The big prize is that you get a baby at the end (after enduring 23 hours of labour so horrendous you begged for a C-section). This is apparently the compensation for nine months of life housing a human being. For having all your organs relocated across your abdomen and being so enormous you feel as if you could be an attraction at Sea World. The prize is pretty great I’ll admit, but still – all that work and now you have an entirely dependent human being who is going to suck away at your time, energy, frustration and money for the rest of eternity.

What if I told you that there is one surprisingly good consequence of pregnancy that might just go with those crazy dreams? If you’re one of the lucky few, that is.

Nocturnal orgasms.

You probably know them better as wet dreams and associate them with 15-year-old boys. Doesn’t nocturnal orgasms sound much more ladylike?

In some women during pregnancy there is an ability to reach climax while sleeping, often related to a hot and steamy dream.

How do I know this you ask?

I’ve had them (apologies to my parents and grandparents reading this).

The first time I wasn’t really sure what happened and I put it down to a delusion. But then it happened again, and again and again. Never had I been so excited to go to sleep.

After some serious investigative work (Google) I came across a number of forums where women confess that they too had been enjoying a sweet dream or two whilst pregnant. I searched for good scientific research about this phenomenon and alas came up empty handed. Clearly, pregnant women climaxing during sleep isn’t at the forefront of hard-hitting medical research. (Won’t someone please fund this study?)

Some more great news - many women (myself included) report that this continues after pregnancy is over. Pretty great, huh?

As with all pregnancy symptoms I’m going to go ahead and chalk up these nocturnal dalliances to those good old hormones. I’m not a medical professional but anyone whose ever been pregnant will know that when you look at your Obstetrician and ask why something is happening to you, they respond ‘ hormones’. They pull the ‘hormones’ answer quicker than the IT department says ‘have you tried restarting it?’

So, run forth and multiply in the hope that you too may enjoy a nocturnal orgasm. Kidding - don’t do it just for that reason.

Did you experience an unconscious orgasm in your sleep during pregnancy?

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