Kweku’s Korner
By Laneshia Conner
Laneshia Conner
When Allyson Felix and Alysia Montaño publicly shared their experiences of pregnancy discrimination in 2019, they reshaped the global conversation on gender equity in sport. Felix’s refusal to accept a 70% pay cut during maternity leave pushed a major sponsor to revise its contracts. Meanwhile, Montaño’s Dream Maternity campaign drew international attention to the realities faced by athlete-mothers. Their advocacy ignited a movement. However, policy change alone does not ensure equity. This is precisely where sport social workers step in.
In September 2025, I presented on sport social work and motherhood in track and field at the 11th Annual Social Work in Sports Symposium in New Orleans. With support from my co-presenters, I facilitated a discussion that reviewed postpartum return-to-sport recommendations. We also examined case study examples of track and field athletes who have led the push for financial protections, maternity policies, ranking safeguards, and athlete-mother support systems. Additionally, we reflected on what institutional childcare and reproductive-health supports looked like during the 2024 Olympics—and where gaps still persist.
A powerful part of this session was the space it created to connect reproductive health and reproductive justice. We discussed the pressures female athletes face related to body image and anatomy, particularly in sports like dance, gymnastics, and swimming, which can cause and perpetuate hyper fixation on female hygiene and anatomy. Coaches in the room shared how they navigate training female athletes through menstrual cycles, hormonal fluctuations, and emotional shifts — and acknowledged how little formal guidance they’ve received on these issues or had even considered.
Others reflected on their own experiences with pregnancy and motherhood outside of sport, highlighting disparities in how women are treated depending on whether their identities align with traditional expectations of motherhood.
Here, sport social workers bring a uniquely valuable combination of advocacy, clinical skill, and systems-level thinking. Because sports were not built with women or motherhood in mind, the challenges surrounding athlete motherhood require a profession capable of both addressing immediate needs and reshaping institutional structures. Sport social workers can create and adapt family-centered policies within training environments, offer counseling during pregnancy and postpartum transitions, and advocate for equitable funding and healthcare protections — all while ensuring athlete voices lead the decision-making process.
At the micro level, sport social workers provide perinatal mental-health care, resource coordination, and individualized return-to-play planning. At the mezzo level, they train coaches and administrators to recognize bias, build inclusive team cultures, and confront longstanding myths that motherhood diminishes performance or shortens athletic careers. Left unaddressed, these beliefs become structural barriers to athlete-mothers’ success. At the macro level, sport social workers collaborate with governing bodies, sponsors, and policymakers to standardize maternity protections across sports systems.
Recent progress — including U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee family-support programs and World Athletics’ ranking-protection policy — represents meaningful movement, yet implementation remains uneven, especially for athletes in under-resourced regions and marginalized communities. Sport social workers are essential to closing these gaps.
The next era of athlete-mother advocacy will rely not only on courageous athletes like Felix, Montaño, Demus, Harper-Nelson, Goucher, Williams, and Vaughn, but on the sustained presence of social workers committed to equity. Their work ensures the track remains open — for every mother who chooses to run it.