Childcare, frozen rankings, the right bra: expert advises IOC on women's sport

But University of Wollongong researcher Associate Professor Deirdre McGhee says there is still a long way to go before there is equality for women in sport.

"When it comes to having a family as a professional athlete, there is no gender equity in elite sport," Prof McGhee said.

The Thirroul resident and exercise physiologist heads up UOW's Breast Research Australia.

She is one of 16 top academics from around the world appointed by the International Olympic Committee to look into the issues facing women in sport during pregnancy, breastfeeding, postpartum and with children.

By 2026, the panel - which also includes experts on pelvic floor health and fertility - will provide the committee with a set of guidelines to make it easier for women to keep going with their sport during and after pregnancy.

"The choice to become a parent or not often coincides with female athletes hitting the peak of their professional athletic career," Prof McGhee said.

"In contrast to male professional athletes, choosing to get pregnant and have a family is more likely to affect a female athlete's career through both time-out of competition during pregnancy and the challenge to return to the same level of competition and ranking of sport postpartum [after giving birth].

"This is why most professional female athletes wait until they retire to have a family."

However this delay can mean athletes face fertility issues, which means they have to sacrifice their personal life for their sport.

"There needs to be more opportunity for top female athletes to be able to have children and stay in the game," she said.

"Not lose their sport that they've worked so hard for."

Already, in Paris, there is more of a focus on how women can be supported, with the Olympic Village having a childcare centre to allow athletes to be closer to their children during the Games.

And for Australia, there are so many female athletes firmly in the spotlight.

"I call it the ripple effect of the Matildas," Prof McGhee said.

"They have to realise, in history, the effect they [have] had on women in sport is just amazing.

"There's now more recognition, there's more promotion, there's more opportunity for women in sport than there than there's ever been for, and that's why there's more attention to these female specific issues that we didn't even talk about before."

However, by the Brisbane 2028 Olympics, Prof McGhee hopes it will be much easier for mothers to participate, with a quicker, safer pathway for to get back to their peak in their chosen sport, with fewer health complications and structural barriers.

"My advice will include not only breast support and bra fit, but also [advice on] exercise around breastfeeding and advice on breast injuries," she said.

"I've worked with elite female athletes from across sporting codes, and they are consistently unaware of the importance of breast health and ensuring their breasts at all stages of their lifespan, including before, during, and after pregnancy."

"I really want to educate them about the changes that will occur to their breast in terms of its structure and how a correct, supportive bra can completely compensate."

She said the guidelines would likely also cover things like training during pregnancy and recovery after having a baby, with her expertise looking at how women can correctly support their breasts and avoid injury while breastfeeding.

"There's also simple things, like arranging that there's childcare facilities at a training venue so you can breastfeed and have your baby with you... or that there's flexibility in training schedules around your feeding so that you can still feed and change," she said.

"So you're not making the the choice between, am I going back to training or am I going to breastfeed, and that you can actually do the two together."

"Or that your ranking in a sport is frozen from when you get pregnant to when you come back, so that you don't start back at the bottom again [and] have a chance to keep progressing your career, or that you can bring someone with you, a carer, when you travel so that you can bring your baby with you."

Prof McGhee said the opportunity to contribute to the IOC, as one of four Australian researchers to do so, was incredible.

Her work will culminate next year in Lausanne, Switzerland at the IOC headquarters, where the researchers will meet and form a consensus on the guidelines.

She said she hoped this would then trickle down from the elite, Olympic level to amateur and local sport.

"The strategies that we develop for the elite will work the same for the weekend warrior," Prof McGhee said.

"And that's important because if we look at the physical activity of male and female children, its equal and then girls hit puberty, with breast development and body changes, they drop off and then in adulthood, it drops off again."

She said one of the major changes that occurred for adolescent girls and then childbearing women was changes in their breasts, but that with the right education and support this was an easy challenge to solve.

"We need additional strategies for our adolescents and adult women to encourage them and support them to be involved in physical activity and sport," she said.

"But the beauty about the breast-related barriers is that we can solve them.

"We just need to connect the women with the good bras - there are bad bras out there but there are good bras too - and if we connect the two together we can completely solve this barrier."