Sport and Breastfeeding
- patriciacorreypall
- Nov 14, 2025
- 2 min read
Nov 14, 2025
Do you trust your body to feed your baby? I was watching an interview today about encouraging girls in sport because it teaches girls confidence, it teaches them to trust their bodies, to make decisions, and teaches them to lead. Do you think the lessons learned through sport influence breastfeeding success?
I wish I could go back to my Augustana University College years and redo my Women in Sport class with the knowledge I have now. I would put an interesting spin on our discussions by bringing breastfeeding into the conversation. Mothers in sport are getting some recognition in the media through Olympic athletes making the headlines for their challenges and triumphs of being an athlete and mother. We saw improvements to policies and Olympic facilities to support mothers with young children and those who are breastfeeding. Being a professional athlete can be a barrier to breastfeeding. Continued advocacy for more support, better facilities, accommodations, and policies to allow nursing mothers to compete would help remove that barrier to choose between their career and their children.
Kim Gaucher, a Canadian basketball athlete and 3x Olympian, did a presentation with La Leche League Canada following her Tokyo 2020 Olympic experience as an athlete and breastfeeding mother. She fought for herself, her baby and for other breastfeeding parents to change policies at the Olympics. Read more about her CBC story here.
Is there a coorelation between being a girl is sport and breastfeeding success? Probably. Is their causation? I don't know. I would love to see the article if you have one. Is there evidence that self-efficacy is a strong determinant of breastfeeding success? Yes. Do girls learn self- efficacy through sport? Yes.
Trust your body. Trust your baby.
Many new parents doubt whether they can produce enough milk or whether breastfeeding is “going well.”
High self-trust leads to:
Greater breastfeeding confidence (“self-efficacy”)
Higher likelihood of exclusive breastfeeding
Longer breastfeeding duration
Low self-trust often contributes to:
Early supplementation
Early cessation of breastfeeding
Anxiety and stress, which can further affect milk supply
Self-efficacy is one of the strongest predictors of breastfeeding success.
How are we influencing our daughters to trust their body?
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