IT IS A topic that female athletes invariably consider at some point.
Yet pregnancy remains somewhat of a taboo subject in women’s sport.
After captaining Athlone Town to the FAI Women’s Cup in 2023 and the club’s first-ever league title in 2024, Laurie Ryan gave birth to a baby boy, Jack.
At the age of 31, she returned to the League of Ireland last October not as a player, but as manager of Treaty United.
The Clare native has also played GAA at county and club level, returning for the Banner Ladies last year.
“As I was pushing on in my career, it’s something you constantly have in the back of your mind: ‘Will you give another year, or will you try to start a family?’ she tells The 42.
“Because if you’re committing to a sport, whether it be Gaelic or soccer, it is a year-long commitment.
“And when we decided we’d have Jack, it was something we’d put a lot of thought into. I knew it would be a difficult decision to step away from sport and take myself out of that environment for a while.”
Bohemians defender Lisa Murphy is one example of a player who returned to play in the League of Ireland after having a child. Yet mothers are a rarity in the Women’s Premier Division, partly because the average age of footballers in the top flight is so young.
Ryan can understand why this tends to be the case.
“I went back playing club football, and I did really enjoy it, but the commitment isn’t the same as if you were to go play inter-county football or League of Ireland soccer, and it was something I was very conscious of.
“I just felt that maybe I couldn’t recover properly and give everything that I would want to be able to give, to be at my peak. So that’s where the opportunity for management, when it presented itself, was nearly the perfect balance.”
Laurie Ryan pictured playing for Athlone Town in 2024. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
One player who did choose to go back was Julie-Ann Russell.
She came up in an environment where female footballers would usually wait until after they finished playing to start families.
“Growing up, that was always a view that I probably had as well, because that’s what I saw. So, any people I knew would wait until they retired and then have children. Or else, maybe people that I knew who were in same-sex relationships, their partner would have carried the child.”
However, the 34-year-old, who is now retired, enjoyed a remarkable Indian summer after pregnancy.
The experienced attacker’s exploits in the Premier Division with Galway United were so impressive that she regained her place in the Ireland squad.
Russell played an important role in helping Ireland reach a Euro 2025 qualifying play-off final, including a goal in a memorable 3-1 victory over France at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
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It was not a level the Galway native was necessarily expecting to return to after giving birth to her daughter, Rosie, despite a distinguished career that saw her finish with 66 senior international caps.
“I wasn’t playing with Ireland at the time. So I don’t know if I would call myself an elite athlete when I fell pregnant,” she says.
“I was training with Galway United and playing in the League of Ireland. But I wasn’t being forced to come back and play – it wasn’t as if that was my job, and I was getting paid to do it. I was working full-time at Microsoft.”
But Russell’s performances were hard to ignore, and she always considered it an honour to represent her country – a stance she reiterated when asked about the prospect in interviews.
“I thought that chapter was over for me, given my age and given the way the game has gone with nearly every single person in the Ireland team a professional.
“Usually, the management team would bring in a young [domestic] player to give them the experience of being around the senior team and getting them prepared. And it was rare that they brought in an older player from the League of Ireland.”
Julie-Ann Russell with her daughter Rosie after an Ireland game. Nick Elliott / INPHO
Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO
Despite opting to finish with Athlone, Ryan chose to remain “quite active” during her pregnancy, running and going to the gym regularly, though she still found the recovery process “quite severe”.
She adds, “After six weeks, I got a female health check to sign me off, to make sure that I was okay to return. And then I was able to get back to exercise, which was really nice, because you do need a little bit of an outlet, especially after so long of carrying a baby and being stressed about it.”
Similar to Ryan, Russell tried to stay as active as possible during her pregnancy.
“I trained up to about maybe 18-19 weeks. And then I was doing running, CrossFit and stuff, and then I went back to training, I think at about 10 weeks. [Galway] were so supportive, as in, I was breastfeeding, I would arrive at training just before I was about to begin, and I would leave straight away after it, because I was getting back to see Rosie.”
It is not always such a seamless process, as Russell points out: “I have friends who weren’t able to go for a walk without getting sick. So it’s different for everybody.”
Laurie Ryan pictured playing for Clare in 2023. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
At the moment, Ryan is balancing managing Treaty with caring for an eight-month-old child.
“We could be up for three hours, or we could sleep through the night, you just never know,” she says.
The young manager sometimes attends training on the back of three hours’ sleep, grateful that she does so in a coaching rather than playing capacity.
At two-and-a-half, Russell’s child is now slightly older, though there were challenging times too.
“I was quite militant in terms of organisation. I was always trying to make sure food was prepped so that I was getting good nutrition.
“I’m obsessed with sleep, so I always tried to sleep when I could.”
Both Ryan and Russell emphasise the unequivocal support they received from their clubs during the process.
“I’m seeing more and more professional women have kids super young, knowing some of them are back playing already, and I just think it’s wonderful, and I’m seeing clubs put support measures in place now, it’s one million per cent not perfect, but it’s a start,” says the former Galway player.
It is also not something that can be taken for granted. In January 2023, a Fifa tribunal ordered Lyon to pay their former player Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir €82,000 in wages, money that had been withheld during her pregnancy.
In May 2024, Fifa issued updated maternity protocols, including a minimum of 14 weeks of paid maternity leave for coaches — previously, it was granted only to players.
How the club and the football industry in general will react is one of several concerns that female footballers contemplate when weighing up the pros and cons of pregnancy.
“If it’s their full-time job, if you’re an elite athlete, [you think] will I get back to that standard?” says Russell. “Will my body return to the way it was? So it’s definitely a scary situation for women athletes.
“One [other] thing that I heard before I got pregnant, and that definitely resonates now, is the mom guilt that people feel, being torn between being fully present as a mom and then being fully committed as an athlete as well.”
There are also more practical challenges to navigate.
“I was playing a game down in Limerick, and I asked the manager not to travel in the team bus, because I was breastfeeding,” recalls Russell. “So I needed my husband to come down so I could feed her before the game, and then straight after the game. It’s all those physical things that people wouldn’t think of unless you were a mother.
“I don’t think a man would think about this. And to be honest, before I had children, I didn’t think about it either.”
On a related note, Ryan adds, “One thing I’ve noticed is that I’d love it if there were a place for moms to change and feed babies at club grounds. It’s something I’ve struggled with, trying to bring Jack out to matches. It’s only a small thing, but again, it’s that shift of, do we want to make it accessible for mothers to do things like this?”
“There needs to be more structured support systems for parents,” says Russell. “So when I was going through it, there wasn’t really any fault on the clubs’ or the FAI’s part; they just said they’d never had the situation before. Everything was new to them and to me.
“So a return to play policy implemented in all the clubs [would be ideal]. My return to play was based on how I felt and what I wanted to do. I listened to my body, and I suppose that’s probably the best you can do. But I know when I see clubs in England and whatnot, they would have return-to-play protocols for postpartum women.
“Then, I suppose, childcare options within a club for training, just flexible scheduling, because it’s different, elite sport. It’s not a normal nine-to-five job.
“Not just soccer, but everyone [needs] to have recognition that parenthood is part of an athlete’s life cycle, and they don’t have to wait until the end of their career. That’d be what I would think needs improvement: normalising conversations around pregnancy, postpartum recovery and the challenges that come with it.”
Ireland’s Kyra Carusa celebrates with Julie-Ann Russell. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
Despite the many potential drawbacks or obstacles from a sporting perspective, both Ryan and Russell agree that there can be positives too.
“I’ll leave the house, and there’s that sense of if something goes wrong in a match, now, it’s not the end of the world, because I have something bigger to go home to,” says the Treaty coach. “Whereas beforehand, every match I’d come home and my mood would be dependent on whether we won or lost or how I played.”
“I feel like after having Rosie, that’s the best football I’ve ever played, nearly the fittest and strongest I’ve ever been,” adds the ex-Ireland international. “Now, I don’t know if that’s because I’m older and have more experience. And maybe not that I didn’t have as much pressure or didn’t care, but I was just more at ease. But it’s funny, that side, I definitely felt so strong. Now, I obviously put in loads of work. It wasn’t just that it came by naturally.
“But there definitely is a massive positive side. It really deepens your resilience, your perspective.”
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'I asked the manager not to travel in the team bus, because I was breastfeeding'
IT IS A topic that female athletes invariably consider at some point.
Yet pregnancy remains somewhat of a taboo subject in women’s sport.
After captaining Athlone Town to the FAI Women’s Cup in 2023 and the club’s first-ever league title in 2024, Laurie Ryan gave birth to a baby boy, Jack.
At the age of 31, she returned to the League of Ireland last October not as a player, but as manager of Treaty United.
The Clare native has also played GAA at county and club level, returning for the Banner Ladies last year.
“As I was pushing on in my career, it’s something you constantly have in the back of your mind: ‘Will you give another year, or will you try to start a family?’ she tells The 42.
“Because if you’re committing to a sport, whether it be Gaelic or soccer, it is a year-long commitment.
“And when we decided we’d have Jack, it was something we’d put a lot of thought into. I knew it would be a difficult decision to step away from sport and take myself out of that environment for a while.”
Bohemians defender Lisa Murphy is one example of a player who returned to play in the League of Ireland after having a child. Yet mothers are a rarity in the Women’s Premier Division, partly because the average age of footballers in the top flight is so young.
Ryan can understand why this tends to be the case.
“I went back playing club football, and I did really enjoy it, but the commitment isn’t the same as if you were to go play inter-county football or League of Ireland soccer, and it was something I was very conscious of.
“I just felt that maybe I couldn’t recover properly and give everything that I would want to be able to give, to be at my peak. So that’s where the opportunity for management, when it presented itself, was nearly the perfect balance.”
One player who did choose to go back was Julie-Ann Russell.
She came up in an environment where female footballers would usually wait until after they finished playing to start families.
“Growing up, that was always a view that I probably had as well, because that’s what I saw. So, any people I knew would wait until they retired and then have children. Or else, maybe people that I knew who were in same-sex relationships, their partner would have carried the child.”
However, the 34-year-old, who is now retired, enjoyed a remarkable Indian summer after pregnancy.
The experienced attacker’s exploits in the Premier Division with Galway United were so impressive that she regained her place in the Ireland squad.
Russell played an important role in helping Ireland reach a Euro 2025 qualifying play-off final, including a goal in a memorable 3-1 victory over France at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
It was not a level the Galway native was necessarily expecting to return to after giving birth to her daughter, Rosie, despite a distinguished career that saw her finish with 66 senior international caps.
“I wasn’t playing with Ireland at the time. So I don’t know if I would call myself an elite athlete when I fell pregnant,” she says.
“I was training with Galway United and playing in the League of Ireland. But I wasn’t being forced to come back and play – it wasn’t as if that was my job, and I was getting paid to do it. I was working full-time at Microsoft.”
But Russell’s performances were hard to ignore, and she always considered it an honour to represent her country – a stance she reiterated when asked about the prospect in interviews.
“I thought that chapter was over for me, given my age and given the way the game has gone with nearly every single person in the Ireland team a professional.
“Usually, the management team would bring in a young [domestic] player to give them the experience of being around the senior team and getting them prepared. And it was rare that they brought in an older player from the League of Ireland.”
Despite opting to finish with Athlone, Ryan chose to remain “quite active” during her pregnancy, running and going to the gym regularly, though she still found the recovery process “quite severe”.
She adds, “After six weeks, I got a female health check to sign me off, to make sure that I was okay to return. And then I was able to get back to exercise, which was really nice, because you do need a little bit of an outlet, especially after so long of carrying a baby and being stressed about it.”
Similar to Ryan, Russell tried to stay as active as possible during her pregnancy.
“I trained up to about maybe 18-19 weeks. And then I was doing running, CrossFit and stuff, and then I went back to training, I think at about 10 weeks. [Galway] were so supportive, as in, I was breastfeeding, I would arrive at training just before I was about to begin, and I would leave straight away after it, because I was getting back to see Rosie.”
It is not always such a seamless process, as Russell points out: “I have friends who weren’t able to go for a walk without getting sick. So it’s different for everybody.”
At the moment, Ryan is balancing managing Treaty with caring for an eight-month-old child.
“We could be up for three hours, or we could sleep through the night, you just never know,” she says.
The young manager sometimes attends training on the back of three hours’ sleep, grateful that she does so in a coaching rather than playing capacity.
At two-and-a-half, Russell’s child is now slightly older, though there were challenging times too.
“I was quite militant in terms of organisation. I was always trying to make sure food was prepped so that I was getting good nutrition.
“I’m obsessed with sleep, so I always tried to sleep when I could.”
Both Ryan and Russell emphasise the unequivocal support they received from their clubs during the process.
“I’m seeing more and more professional women have kids super young, knowing some of them are back playing already, and I just think it’s wonderful, and I’m seeing clubs put support measures in place now, it’s one million per cent not perfect, but it’s a start,” says the former Galway player.
It is also not something that can be taken for granted. In January 2023, a Fifa tribunal ordered Lyon to pay their former player Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir €82,000 in wages, money that had been withheld during her pregnancy.
In May 2024, Fifa issued updated maternity protocols, including a minimum of 14 weeks of paid maternity leave for coaches — previously, it was granted only to players.
How the club and the football industry in general will react is one of several concerns that female footballers contemplate when weighing up the pros and cons of pregnancy.
“If it’s their full-time job, if you’re an elite athlete, [you think] will I get back to that standard?” says Russell. “Will my body return to the way it was? So it’s definitely a scary situation for women athletes.
“One [other] thing that I heard before I got pregnant, and that definitely resonates now, is the mom guilt that people feel, being torn between being fully present as a mom and then being fully committed as an athlete as well.”
There are also more practical challenges to navigate.
“I was playing a game down in Limerick, and I asked the manager not to travel in the team bus, because I was breastfeeding,” recalls Russell. “So I needed my husband to come down so I could feed her before the game, and then straight after the game. It’s all those physical things that people wouldn’t think of unless you were a mother.
“I don’t think a man would think about this. And to be honest, before I had children, I didn’t think about it either.”
On a related note, Ryan adds, “One thing I’ve noticed is that I’d love it if there were a place for moms to change and feed babies at club grounds. It’s something I’ve struggled with, trying to bring Jack out to matches. It’s only a small thing, but again, it’s that shift of, do we want to make it accessible for mothers to do things like this?”
“There needs to be more structured support systems for parents,” says Russell. “So when I was going through it, there wasn’t really any fault on the clubs’ or the FAI’s part; they just said they’d never had the situation before. Everything was new to them and to me.
“So a return to play policy implemented in all the clubs [would be ideal]. My return to play was based on how I felt and what I wanted to do. I listened to my body, and I suppose that’s probably the best you can do. But I know when I see clubs in England and whatnot, they would have return-to-play protocols for postpartum women.
“Then, I suppose, childcare options within a club for training, just flexible scheduling, because it’s different, elite sport. It’s not a normal nine-to-five job.
“Not just soccer, but everyone [needs] to have recognition that parenthood is part of an athlete’s life cycle, and they don’t have to wait until the end of their career. That’d be what I would think needs improvement: normalising conversations around pregnancy, postpartum recovery and the challenges that come with it.”
Despite the many potential drawbacks or obstacles from a sporting perspective, both Ryan and Russell agree that there can be positives too.
“I’ll leave the house, and there’s that sense of if something goes wrong in a match, now, it’s not the end of the world, because I have something bigger to go home to,” says the Treaty coach. “Whereas beforehand, every match I’d come home and my mood would be dependent on whether we won or lost or how I played.”
“I feel like after having Rosie, that’s the best football I’ve ever played, nearly the fittest and strongest I’ve ever been,” adds the ex-Ireland international. “Now, I don’t know if that’s because I’m older and have more experience. And maybe not that I didn’t have as much pressure or didn’t care, but I was just more at ease. But it’s funny, that side, I definitely felt so strong. Now, I obviously put in loads of work. It wasn’t just that it came by naturally.
“But there definitely is a massive positive side. It really deepens your resilience, your perspective.”
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Conundrum Interview Julie Ann Russell laurie ryan Pregnancy Ireland Republic treaty united