‘Get your pre-baby body back? We just want mums to enjoy sport again’
Ex-england netball coach Tracey Neville wants to help mothers to overcome fears, she tells
‘I was scared to exercise after having my baby. I thought there was no point’
Scrolling through her r inbox, Sorcha Mac Laimhin n clicked on the email sent to her by a well-known pregnancy ncy and parenting company. Having given birth three months earlier, the subject header piqued her curiosity: ‘ The ultimate guide to shaping up post-baby’.
Opening it, her eyes wandered on to a photo of bronzed, bikini-clad women with flat tummies, accompanied with the caption, “seven easy ways to get your pre-baby body back!”
“I was absolutely horrified,” recalls Mac Laimhin. “Why was a company mpany which was meant to be supporting mums putting g pressure on them like that?’ I just thought hought it was completely wrong.”
The negative messaging g immediately struck a chord rd with Mac Laimhin, a competitive ive rugby player with 25 appearances es for Irish provincial side Ulster er under her belt.
Before the pandemic, she he returned to the pitch and played a few games for her local club, ub, Cooke RFC, and was relishing hing the familiar feeling of exercising rcising with friends, even if it meant eant pumping her sore breasts s before training on several l cold November evenings last year.
When lockdown hit, Mac ac Laimhin felt uneasy about t the sudden societal pressure to buy into the online home workout kout craze while trying to navigate gate the tricky path of motherhood hood in almost complete isolation. n.
Eager to champion mothers thers who juggle sport and family ily life, she launched Mama Loves s Sport, a platform celebrating ordinary nary mums who play sport at community level.
“When we talk about mums getting active again – that’s t’s just it – getting mums moving again gain after having a baby,” says Mac Laimhin.
“It’s so negative and damaging. maging. Why are we focusing on an aesthetic when we should d be encouraging mums to play ay sports because it’s fun, it’s a mental ntal break and it’s great for you physically? sically?
“We so rarely celebrate e mums who play sport and the focus cus tends to be on getting back to an n active lifestyle and the dreaded ‘snappingback’ – getting your pre-pregnancy pregnancy jeans back on and losing the ‘mum tum’.”
That is something which ch former national netball coach Tracey acey Neville, who guided England and to a historic Commonwealth gold medal two years ago, can relate to.
For Neville, who gave birth to baby
Nev two days before the
UK went into lockdown, learning the ropes of motherhood in the middle of a pandemic took away her feeling of self-worth and heightened body image and exercise concerns.
This even extended to the most menial of tasks like wearing leggings for the online launch of the Baby to Baller series on social media – a free, six-week video series incorporating netball skills into gentle home workouts designed to suit post-partum bodies and help new mums get active. “I was actually scared to do exercise,” Neville tells
Sport. “Sometimes when I did a HIIT (high-intensity interval training) session and Nev was crying, I had to stop and it felt like I failed. Then I thought there was no point doing 20 minutes, because I was never going to get it done.”
Baby to Baller was unveiled alongsid alongside research from health insurer V Vitality, which surveyed 1,000 wo women about how the lockdow lockdown had impacted their relations relationship with exercise.
It foun found nearly two thirds of mothers felt isolated, while a similar p proportion said they would like to ex exercise more but did not know how ho to with a new baby.
At 43, Neville’s pregnancy was classed a as high-risk which meant she limit limited her exercise and one of her grea greatest challenges was the uncertai uncertainty of bouncing back from having a caesarean.
“I had a midwife and health visitor, t the NHS were unbelievable, but I did didn’t leave with a plan, I just got told I couldn’t do anything for six week weeks,” she said. “We never say to our at athletes: ‘ You don’t do anything for six weeks.’ There’s always s something light they can do. [ With a C-section] there’s no individu individualisation with what you’re doing.”
Earlie Earlier this month Nike launched its first maternity sport clothing range – including a sports bra that allows wearers to breastfee breastfeed – with elite-level mums gaining a higher profile. Serena William Williams, Tsvetana Pironkova, and Victoria Azarenka all advanced to the qua quarter-finals of the US Open – the fi first time three mums had reache reached that stage.
Icon Iconic US footballer Alex Morga Morgan, who gave birth in May, is plan planning a speedy return to the game b by signing for Tottenham Hotspu Hotspur in England’s Women’s Super L League, and Britain’s cycling mum Lizzie Deignan triumph triumphed at La Course last month.
Despit Despite openly admitting her ‘mum tu tum’ is now one of her biggest i insecurities, Neville was adamant Baby to Baller did not morph in into another “lose weight thing” at a time when, in addition to manag managing their pregnancy weight, w women are being told to shift the their ‘lockdown lard’.
“I’m six months out from having a baby, I’ve not got the perfect body, but I just want to be active. It’s not just about getting back into shape as quick as you can – it’s about everything that comes with that.”
Mac Laimhin agrees: “I’ve been involved in sport far too long to worry about what my body looks like. I’m far more worried about what my body can do.”
Two mums, one with a grassroots past, the other a former elite athlete, united in their aim to harness the mental and physical benefits of sport at a time when it is needed more than ever.