Barriers and enablers influencing female athlete return-to-sport postpartum: a scoping review

Abstract

Objective: Motherhood within sport has become more common with many female athletes seeking to return-to-sport (RTS) postpartum; yet few sport organisations possess policies that support female athletes to RTS postpartum. Our aim was to synthesise existing literature to identify the barriers and enablers that influence female athlete RTS postpartum to help guide the development of evidence-based policies to support postpartum athlete RTS.

Design: Scoping review.

Data sources: Ovid-Medline, Embase, SportDiscus and Scopus were systematically searched. Reference lists of eligible studies were also searched to identify additional studies of relevance.

Eligibility criteria: Original, empirical, peer-reviewed, English-language studies reporting on female athletes and their RTS postpartum. Reviews, book chapters and grey literature were excluded.

Results: Twenty-two studies were included in this review. Identified barriers and enablers reflected 11 categories which occurred within and/or across three domains of the socioecological model. Five key factors were found to significantly influence female athlete RTS postpartum including (1) postpartum recovery time; (2) time to manage motherhood and sport demands; (3) sport organisation policies; (4) stereotypes; and (5) social support.

Conclusion: Various barriers and enablers exist that influence successful RTS postpartum. These factors present opportunities for clinicians and sport organisations to improve their support of postpartum athletes. Paid maternity leave, offering job security, travel support for carer and child and affordable and accessible childcare are critical policy inclusions to appropriately support female athletes in their RTS postpartum.

Keywords: athletes; female; sport.