World Athletics revealed on Tuesday that it has launched a project that examines how elite female athletes have navigated pregnancy, childbirth and ultimately returning to competition.
The Childbirth And Return in Elite Sport initiative will look at the personal experiences of the athletes as a model to help shape future reform and support to help remedy protocols that might not have previously been consistent.
“We are continually looking for ways to make our sport even more equitable, and the CARES project is the next step in ensuring athletes who experience pregnancy are protected, receive support and do not face barriers when it comes to being able to make a return to elite athletics,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said. “It is important that our athletes are the driving force behind this. The responses generated by these surveys and the associated analysis of performance metrics is vital to this project, to inform future action.”
The study will by fueled by two surveys and the first is geared for female female athletes who were pregnant or after January 1, 2019 during their careers. Those athletes are encouraged to touch on their paths back to competition, any perceived obstacles, what kind of organizational support they received (or did not get) and if their contractural obligations from sponsors were impacted as it related to the birth of their children.
For the second survey, elite female athletes who have not been pregnant or given birth are asked to comment on how they view maternity-related governance and elaborate on the state of any existing support structure under the current system.
World Athletics says it will use the information to take a “retrospective analysis” of its own database to uncover new insights.
“When I started my career, you didn’t want to tell your sponsors if you got pregnant because you might get dropped,” World Athletics Athletes’ Commission Chair Valerie Adams said. “By the time I retired – as a mother of two – we’re seeing more female athletes coming back from having kids and performing at an elite level. I hope that the work being done in this space will further inspire female athletes to not only plan their sporting career, but also plan their life.”
The survey, which closes on September 30, is open to all elite female included in the World Athletics competition performance ranking.
