Sexual Health/Fertility

For general information on sexuality and fertility following SCI go to https://scia.org.au/living-with-a-disability/health-wellbeing-and-daily-life/sexuality-and-fertility/. For more detailed clinical information the Paralyzed Veterans of America website (www.pva.org) provides free PDF downloads of ‘Sexuality and Reproductive Health for Adults with SCI’, the Royal North Shore Hospital in NSW has also produced a booklet ‘Sexuality and Fertility Following SCI’ for Health Professionals (http://www.aci.health.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/155203/sex_and_fertility.pdf#zoom=100).

Many men with SCI will have problems with fertility after their accident and will require specialist fertility treatment if they wish to start a family. Fertility treatment is no longer available through the public sector and is private only, there are several fertility clinics in Perth.

Relationships

Sexuality is an important aspect of life for all individuals and this does not change following spinal cord injury. Your thoughts and feelings about sex and sexuality will change with time after your injury. The Mount Sinai Medical Centre (USA) has produced an excellent talk given by someone with SCI discussing these feelings and emotional issues. Go to http://event.netbriefings.com/event/mssci/Archives/Reg/ and register to view the video. This site also has videos of panels of women and men with SCI at different levels, who were injured at different ages, discussing their experiences with sexuality.

CareCure (http://sci.rutgers.edu) has a very informative forum on ‘Relationships & Sexuality’, to access this forum you must sign up as a member of CareCure (this is free and is done so that content can be properly screened and moderated). The Australian website http://vcelkaj.wix.com/disaboom provides information on Living with a Disability including information on ‘Dating and Relationships’ with a discussion of online dating.