Coach Is Courtside Hours After Giving Birth: Redefines Bouncing Back
Amber Branson coached a tournament basketball game Friday afternoon, gave birth Friday night, and returned to the court Saturday to lead her high school girl’s team to a 21-2 victory, qualifying them for the state finals.
“I didn’t do anything that didn’t feel like I was supposed to be doing,” Branson, of Lipan, Texas said. “And I just wanted to be with the girls. During the game I was fine as long as I was standing. I think emotion and adrenaline and everything else kept me going.”
These stories can do one of two things: inspire women or set up unrealistic expectations.
It’s worth noting that this was not Branson’s first experience giving birth, but her third. She had a relatively quick and un-medicated labor, so she was eligible for early hospital discharge.
I think there’s definitely something reassuring in this story: It really would be weird of our bodies hadn’t been designed to be able to get up and do things soon after giving birth. After my second labor, also relatively short and unmedicated, I was up and active right away.
I read a great book once called A Midwife’s Story by a midwife who served the Amish community. Of course you can imagine– the Amish women were making food and keeping house and doing chores– one women was refinishing a chair on her porch at 9 centimeters!–right up to and after birth.Very inspiring.
But I have also read that women who leave their stressful office jobs in advance of going into labor have a slightly lowered chance of a c-section.
It seems like staying active and participating in activities that are meaningful to you– as Branson did with her basketball team– can have a positive impact. She “wanted” to be there. It felt right to her. But maybe jobs involving lots of stress and communications and logistics are far too overwhelming at the end of pregnancy and right after birth.
Will you work right up to labor? How important is you to be able to get up and go after birth? Do you want to work? Or do you have to?
photo: Shockmotion/Flickr
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Honestly? I think this story is just really sad.
There is nothing more amazing than the moments and hours following the birth of your child. That time should be spent recuperating and bonding with your new baby if possible.
All this story tells me is that this woman’s priorities are seriously screwed up.
I’m just going to leave it at that.
I think it’s pretty sad that she felt she had to be there. If she is a great coach and has prepared her team well, they would rise to the occasion and play their very best game…. just for her! Leadership is all about empowering the team, trusting them to do the right thing, and getting your priorities straight.
Giving birth doesn’t really get ho-hum, even for your third baby! Maybe it’s all about the trophy – not the baby! Life is too short and fame too fleeting to make this kind of choice.
I think the difference between being active right up until the baby is born and being active right after is that our bodies are in completely different places. We aren’t recovering from anything in late pregnancy and although our body can benefit from increased awareness of when we’re pushing the limits, there isn’t anything really dangerous about being active. I think birth is arduous and even in ideal circumstances requires space for proper and healthful healing. I think the previous commenter make good points about the emotional/relational reasons to just chill with your baby for a bit postpartum but I think we’re setting up physically dangerous expectations for women to encourage “normal” physical activity following labor. Rest is good and recovery will be shorter if women are encouraged to give themselves space to heal. I feel sad that we as women feel like we have to be insta-normal after a birth in order to feel proud of ourselves.