Motherhood in Football: Celebrating ahead of Mother's Day

Motherhood has always been painted as incompatible with a high-level career, and nowhere is that more evident than in sport. But the reality is that women are experts at multitasking: juggling careers, households, and personal lives has been a requirement for generations. Yet the systems we operate within were designed by people who have never needed to navigate the simultaneous demands of a newborn, a career, and societal expectations. For decades, women have been expected to replicate the work of an octopus: simultaneously feeding, soothing, managing, and performing, while still excelling in their chosen professions. In football, this expectation collided with a sport built on outdated notions of what female bodies ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ do.

Historically, leaving your career, even temporarily, has always been risky for women. Across industries, female employment drops sharply postpartum, especially at senior levels. Many women delay having children until they feel financially secure and professionally established, aware that the early years of parenthood are both expensive and demanding. In elite sport, that tension is magnified. For female athletes, success is measured in physical peak performance, and for decades, society assumed that motherhood and athletic excellence were mutually exclusive. Female athletes were expected to dedicate themselves entirely to training and competition, with little regard for the fact that women might want, or plan, to have children.

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The assumption that women’s bodies exist solely for reproduction has shaped sports history in absurd ways. Women were banned from marathon running for decades, officially because long-distance running ‘damaged reproductive health.’ England went even further: in 1921, the FA banned women’s football from FA-affiliated grounds, due to health concerns and the supposed fragility of female athletes. The message was clear: the system has never been built to allow female athletes to be mothers.

But football is changing, and the women within it are the ones rewriting the rules.

The New Reality: Mothers on the Pitch

In recent years, a quiet but powerful shift has taken place across women’s football. Players are no longer forced to choose between their careers and their families. Instead, they are showing that with the right support, infrastructure and understanding, motherhood and elite sport can exist side by side.

Across leagues and international teams, footballers are training while pregnant, giving birth, and returning to competition. What once would’ve been viewed as the end of a career, is increasingly becoming just another chapter within it.

In England, a landmark agreement between the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association introduced improved maternity protections for players in the Women’s Super League and the Women’s Championship. Since the 2022/23 season, players going on maternity leave receive 100% of their weekly wages and benefits for the first 14 weeks, without needing to meet a minimum employment period. It’s a policy that recognises pregnancy as part of life, not a professional risk.

Elsewhere in Europe, some leagues have gone even further. In Norway, contracts are automatically extended for pregnant players, ensuring they do not lose job security while starting a family. These changes represent the formal recognition that motherhood belongs within the game.

A Blueprint for Support

If you’re wondering how clubs adapt training schedules for players who are pregnant, lets take a look at Amanda Illestedt’s journey at Arsenal.

Working alongside pelvic health specialist Emma Brockwell, the club created a tailored programme designed around the realities of pregnancy. Training loads were adjusted, wellness check-ins became routine every morning, and physical limitations were respected and adjusted without compromising the athlete’s wellbeing.

Photo Credit: IG @amandailestedt

Rather than treating pregnancy as an obstacle, the club approached it as something that could be supported through expertise and planning. The result wasn’t just a successful pregnancy experience, but due to this being Arsenal’s first pregnancy, it created a framework that other players can now follow, establishing a blueprint for the future.

Football Families

Beyond policy and medical support, the culture of women’s football has also played a huge role in reshaping what motherhood in the sport looks like.

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Photo Credit: Chelsea FC Women

International teams like the Australia women’s national football team have normalised bringing babies on camp. Midfielder Katrina Gorry has spoken openly about travelling with her children while continuing her international career, demonstrating that football and family life don’t have to exist in separate worlds.

Women’s football also has a deeply visible queer community. Many players in same-sex relationships are building families in ways that allow one partner to carry a child while the other continues playing. Players like Sam Kerr, Guro Reiten, and Michelle Heyman represent just some of the many different pathways to parenthood that exist in the modern game.

Changing the Conversation

Perhaps the most significant shift are the conversations that once felt taboo are now happening openly between players, fans and media.

England internationals, Ella Toone and Alessia Russo, have spoken about the realities of timing motherhood alongside a playing career on their podcast, The Tooney & Russo Show. Their discussions reflect a new generation of athletes who feel able to think about family life without assuming it will derail their ambitions.

Former England women’s national football team captain, Mary Phillip, navigated motherhood while maintaining elite standards, including competing at World Cups. Even during these competitions, where Mary had to spend a long time away from her children, the FA set up Skype calls so that they could stay in contact.

Rethinking the Timeline

Players are increasingly realising that parenthood does not have to be squeezed into the final years of a career. For some, it may happen earlier than the sport once expected, due to this improvement of infrastructure and support. Athletes like Missy Bo Kearns, Sophia Wilson (formerly Smith) and Celin Bizet represent a generation of footballers growing up in a game that looks very different to the one that came before them. With improved maternity policies, better medical guidance and clubs increasingly embracing family life, players now have more freedom to make decisions about when, or if, they want children, without feeling that it will derail everything they have worked for.

Photo Credit: IG @sophiawilson

That shift may sound small, but it represents a massive change that industries across the world should try and replicate. Instead of planning motherhood around the end of their careers, players are beginning to see it as something that can exist within them. 

The Future of Motherhood in Football

The most exciting part of this story is that it’s still being written. Across the women’s game, players are continuing to redefine what an athletic career can look like. Pregnancy is no longer assumed to be the end of a career, and parenthood is no longer something that must be postponed.

Instead, a new generation of footballers are showing that motherhood can exist alongside ambition, performance and elite competition. Female athletes are training while pregnant, giving birth, returning to the pitch, winning trophies and continuing their careers, all while raising families.

This Mother’s Day, it’s worth celebrating the women across the game who make it all possible. From the players, to the coaches, physios and backroom staff: Happy Mother’s Day.