Athlete-Moms Face Mental Hurdles to Return to Competition

....."When you’re an athlete, you get a lot of your strength from your physical strength,” says Shelburne. “Your identity is wrapped up in this idea that you can do anything.”....

.....But after giving birth, an elite athlete can’t do anything — at least, not at the level she’s used to. In the six-week period following birth — called immediate postpartum — women are typically not encouraged to exercise, except for pelvic floor muscle strength training. But Dr. Kari Bø and her colleagues note in the 2016–17 evidence summary from the International Olympics Committee expert group meeting, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, that time period is “arbitrary.” “Anecdotally,” they write, “many elite athletes report starting exercise inside that period.”....