Pregnancy and sports a challenging combination for female professional athletes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Pro soccer player Jess McDonald was traded across six teams in her first five years as a single parent, making it difficult to find, let alone afford, child care in new cities. She and her then-8-month-old son were often forced to share a hotel room with a teammate — and sometimes she had no choice but to bring him with her to practice.

“If I’d have a bad game, you know, my kid would be blamed for it at times, and it was just like, ‘Oh, was your kid up late at night?’” the U.S. Women’s National Team player said in a recent interview.

Arizona State basketball coach Charli Turner Thorne had three children without taking maternity leave. And New York Liberty head coach and former WNBA player Sandy Brondello — acknowledging the difficulties that she would face if she got pregnant — waited to have kids until she retired as a player at age 38.

Juggling the demands of parenthood with those of a professional sports career is just one of myriad challenges female athletes face in an industry that also has been rife with pay disparities, harassment and bullying in the 27 years since the WNBA, the first women’s professional sports league, was formed.

The issue once again drew national attention right before the season began, when WNBA player Dearica Hamby said she had been harassed by her coach for getting pregnant during the season.

Las Vegas Aces Coach Becky Hammon, one of the league’s marquee figures and a six-time WNBA All-Star, denied bullying Hamby; she said the player wasn’t traded to the Los Angeles Sparks because she was pregnant. The trade, she said, had “everything to do with freeing up money to sign free agents.”

Still, Hammon said she may have made a “misstep” by asking Hamby at one point about her pregnancy, and she indicated that the rules in the WNBA “regarding pregnant players and how that looks within an organization” have to be better defined, shining a light on the balancing act of having a family and maintaining a professional sports career.

Women have never been formally banned from the WNBA for getting pregnant; in fact, the first player to sign with the league in 1997, Sheryl Swoopes, was expecting when she did so. But pregnant athletes have encountered attitudes ranging from ambivalent to outright hostile from leagues, coaches, fellow players and sponsors throughout the years.

As recently as 2019, Olympic runners Allyson Felix and Kara Goucher spoke out against Nike for slashing their pay and then dropping them for becoming pregnant. And it’s taken years for professional women’s leagues to provide their athletes with the support systems they need to balance their family and career obligations.

“I’ve been walking on eggshells as a mom in this league since Day 1,” said McDonald, who last week announced her second pregnancy.

McDonald said that back in 2012, she trained up until two weeks before giving birth; it wasn’t until last year that players in the league…