Mum mission to get sports stars on top after bub
When CQU PhD student Jasmine Titova decided to shift her career into research, she wasn’t sure what topic to tackle.
One thing she did know: the role had to fit around family.
Working with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to better support elite athletes through pregnancy and parenting turned out to be the perfect match – professionally and personally.
“I’d been looking for research opportunities because I wanted to start a family, and I had the idea that research was flexible, you could work from home, you could manage your schedule around babies,” she explained.
“Of course, parenting turned out to be 10 times more work than I’d anticipated! But it made my research feel very relevant, asking myself how an athlete would juggle it all – it’s hard enough when you’ve got a job that’s flexible!”
Jasmine began her PhD with CQUniversity in 2022 to conduct research in partnership with the AIS.
Soon after, she was pregnant with her first child – and three years on, the determined mum has a two-year-old, a four-month-old and a freshly-completed PhD.
Now her work is set to inspire generations of new mums, with the AIS releasing new best-practice recommendations for how sporting organisations support elite athletes – through pre-conception and pregnancy, to postpartum and parenting.
Jasmine wrote the recommendations with her research supervisor and CQU Health Sciences Associate Professor Melanie Hayman, and fellow CQU PhD candidate Boden Tighe.
The evidence-based guide builds on the experiences of more than 60 athletes, coaches, high-performance support staff and medical professionals who participated in the research.
She’s been motivated by Australian competitors like three-time Olympic canoeist and kayaker Alyce Wood, who soared to career-best performances after having children, including a national record at 35 weeks postpartum.
“I knew nothing about the sport, but understanding the demands of training, diet, conditioning and travelling to compete, all managed around a baby – it’s intense and incredibly inspiring!”
With her own newborn, Jasmine was also juggling a lot – and often one-handed.
“For the studies, I did all the recruiting of participants which involved creating socials and sending more than 1000 personalised messages to potential participants, all one-handed on my phone while breastfeeding five or six hours a day!” Jasmine said.
“Having two kids in three years around a PhD has only been manageable because I’m well supported by my husband and family, and my supervisor Associate Professor Melanie Hayman, who is also a mum – they created the flexibility and encouragement I needed to make it happen,” she explained.
“Even though I’m not an athlete, I really had to schedule my time and deliverables – I had my supervisors reviewing my last paper while I gave birth to my second.
“My experience gives me confidence that by advocating for increased supports for athletes, I’m doing something really meaningful … (because) for me having children has been the joy of my life, more than I’d ever anticipated!
“If I can just help athletes take that first step, knowing they’re supported and that a career after kids is viable, it could be the difference between them experiencing parenthood, or not.
“I also want to see more mothers in the public eye – elite athletes are role models for the next generation of young girls, and they can show girls that motherhood doesn’t mark the end of ambition, it can be flexible and full of opportunities to grow and challenge yourself, just as I’ve experienced."
The CQUniversity research was funded by the Australian Government, the AIS and QAS and the CQUniversity Elevate Scholarship Scheme – explore the recommendations here.
Discover how you can change the world with research via CQUniversity's Research Higher Degree website.
