World Athletics has launched a project to study pregnancy, childbirth and the return to competition among elite female athletes to help shape future policy.

The Childbirth And Return in Elite Sport (CARES) project aims to combine research and policy to better understand pregnancy and motherhood in elite athletics and to shape support systems to reduce inequality. 

Olympic rower Lucy Spoors she felt a lot of pressure to recover and return to form in the post-partum stage ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

"I knew it was possible, but I guess it put a lot of pressure on us in the post-partum phase to get back to where we needed to be quickly, just to be able to even qualify." 

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