Elite female athletes, their pregnancies and post-partum recocovery
Sun, May 13, 2007 - By Mike Muha
Joanne Gerstner of the Detroit News wrote a series of articles in Saturday's paper about the difficult of being an elite athlete while pregnant or recovering from pregnancy. The article explains "there is scant research on elite female athletes, their pregnancies and post-partum recovery." Many female athletes have problems trying to find the balance between recovery and training.
Says Dr. Amy Miller Bohn, part of the University of Michigan's sports medicine staff and a U-M assistant professor in family medicine, "It's kind of like two ends of a spectrum for what's out there on post-partum exercise, whether it's from the medical organizations or through videos," Miller Bohn said. "Either you have the very basic, slow easy programs. Nothing like that will help them get back to elite status. Or you have the harder rehab workouts, which might work for other injuries, but not for post-partum. "You need a middle ground until they can do more intensity. And I'm confident we're going to get that information soon. We've made a lot of progress in the last 10 years in sports medicine for female athletes."