Reform the London Marathon’s refusal to grant Pregnancy Deferral.

Faith Geraghty, Emma Smith and Claire Fitzpatrick are campaigning to change the London Marathon’s discriminatory stance on pregnancy deferral. Their aim is to promote women's equality and strive for a healthier running community.

Faith ran a sub 3hr-15min marathon to win a championship entry for the London Marathon due to take place in April 2020. The pandemic hit, delaying the race until October 2021. During lockdown, Faith had a baby boy called David by unplanned caesarean section.

Faith maintained a high fitness level throughout her pregnancy, yet after birth felt she was totally unprepared for how hard the physical (and mental) recovery would be, particularly after a caesarean. 

Fortunately at 6 weeks postpartum, Faith sought specialist advice and joined Mum & Bub online postnatal program run by Emma Smith and Claire Fitzpatrick, physiotherapists specialising in women’s health for pre and postnatal care. 

Whilst Faith’s return to running is going well, she understandably needs more time to heal and strengthen her whole body including her abdominal wall and pelvic floor to return to the level of fitness she had reached previously to obtain her London Marathon Championship place.

Forcing Faith to run in October (or lose her place), puts her at greater risk of long term damage.

Sadly Faith’s request to defer her London Marathon entry by 1 year was denied. She was told to use the place, or lose it. She feels she has no choice but to participate.  She says “New motherhood is challenging enough without being forced to prepare for a marathon.”

The London Marathon is one of the most prestigious races in the World. They should take the lead; change their policy to enable women to defer their entry after childbirth, and show women, mother's and their families that women's health and women's equality in sport is fundamental to a better, fairer, healthier society.

Research shows that:

• Running places huge demands on the pelvic floor and abdominal wall and as a high impact sport has a 4.59 increased risk of pelvic floor dysfunction compared to low impact exercise (Lorenco et al. 2018).
• Uterine scar healing and remodeling takes at least 6-7 months after having a baby to gain 73%-93% of the abdominal fascia strength (Ceydeli et al. 2005).
• Sleep deprivation in athletes is associated with increased injury risk (Milewski et al. 2014), lower general health and increased stress (Biggins et al. 2017). Sleep loss is also thought to reduce muscle protein synthesis and impair maximal muscle strength (Knowles et al. 2018).
• Too many female runners suffer from pelvic health symptoms: 12.7%, 34% and 37% suffer from pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence and anal incontinence respectively (Forner et al. 2021). 
• 1 in 4 women experience Pelvic floor dysfunction - irrespective of the mode of delivery (Wu et al. 2014).

Return to Run Guidelines report that:

• Mothers may only return to running and continue to run if they pass a range of tests.
• Graded return to run is paramount, to begin with 5k.