Seeing an elite athlete feeding her baby while competing continues to surprise , although recent moms like Irina still find it strange that it catches people’s attention.
Irina plays for the Associació Lleidatana d’Handbol, a handball club of the Division de Honor Plata (second division). He scored seven goals in the last game held on Sunday, but what is being talked about is the image shared on social networks where she is seen breastfeeding her young son, barely two and a half months old, on the same court .
It is clear that it is necessary to normalize motherhood and make it possible to reconcile sports life and family, without the penalties that sportswomen suffer right now.
If only a few days ago we were talking about the British Sophie Power, who breastfed her baby while running a marathon, today the protagonist is Irina.
This recent 29-year-old mother, a player in the Second Division of Handball, during last Sunday’s game, was caught breastfeeding her baby, barely two and a half months old, at halftime.
A difficult task: reconciling profession and family
The Dona Bàlafia Association, for women’s equality, published a tweet where the 29-year-old player was seen breastfeeding her little one, with the message of:
“It is a pleasure to see mothers and children sharing sports at the highest level and motherhood in the pavilion. There is little talk, and not only in the sports environment, but in the professional environment in general, and it must be normalized.”
Congratulations on the win!
Super performance by the reincorporated players. It’s nice to see mothers and children in the pavilion sharing sport at the highest level and motherhood. # Esportfemenilleida
Little is said about it, and not only in the sports environment, but in the professional environment in general. normalize it. pic.twitter.com/7DjCG7q2kZ– DONA BALAFIA ASSOC. (@donabalafia) September 16, 2018
Irina was born in Romania, although she has been playing handball in Spain for 14 years. And just as she did after the birth of her first daughter (who is now four years old), she has returned to playing five weeks after delivery.
It hurts him how difficult it is to reconcile in our country:
“One year I went to Gijón, hoping to play in the First Division, and I came across a clause that said that if I got pregnant, the contract would automatically be terminated. This does not happen in Romania, where your contract is automatically renewed if you stay. pregnant”.
However, she feels privileged. As he explains to El Periódico:
“You come back as normal, with a few extra kilos like almost all mothers and after ten months gone, but you recover and soon you are well.”
“The team trains at 9 o’clock at night, so around eight o’clock the four of us get into the car and go to the pavilion. It is very easy to reconcile, because I am lucky that my partner accompanies me. Normally I give him the chest in the middle of training and games, and my coach and my teammates understand perfectly that if I hear my son cry I will have to leave for a few minutes. “
The situation of women’s professional sport
Not only is it poorly paid, which forces many women to make it compatible with another profession (as is the case with Irina, who is also a technical architect), but they must also fight against discriminatory laws.
An example is the anti-pregnancy clauses that many soccer players must sign if they want to play for professional teams. Something that does not happen in other countries, such as the United States and England, where mothers take their children to games, and in sports gatherings and training sessions they can have babysitters who take care of them while they work.
Blanca Manchón told how her sponsors turned their backs on her when she announced that she was pregnant. And that she had been five times world windsurf champion and had no intention of leaving it. Her motherhood was going to be just a short hiatus in her career. She herself stated that if you live in Spain, you are a woman and an athlete and you become pregnant, “you are finished.”
And neither do elite athletes have it easy to reconcile outside our borders. Not long ago we talked about the criticism that Serena Willians suffered for wearing postpartum sportswear and her criticism of the International Tennis Federation that equates pregnancy with an injury, so the sports career is suspended until the return to the courts, losing the place in the international ranking.
Via | The newspaper
Photos | Facebook
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