Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix has partnered with Pampers to create the first-ever nursery to help athlete parents in the Olympic Village.
Felix, the most decorated track and field athlete of all time, announced the plans for the Pampers Nursery during a Wednesday appearance on CBS Mornings.
Now retired from competing, the mother of two has been vocal about the struggles of juggling being an elite athlete and a parent, and currently advocates on the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes Commission.
"I just knew how difficult it was to compete at the top level after I had my daughter, and some practical things were really hard,” said Felix during the live interview. “I really wanted to be that voice for athlete moms, and just take away one less thing for them to worry about in the pressure of competition.”
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The nursery will be located in the heart of the Athlete Village Plaza. “This space is a place where they can have play time and feed their babies and get away from a lot of the noise that happens at the Olympic games,” said Felix.
Felix said she sees the nursery as a starting point for a cultural shift that shows women can choose motherhood and still be at the top of their game.
In 2019, Felix helped ignite a public outcry after The New York Times published her op-ed piece that claimed Nike, her longtime sponsor, wanted to pay her less after she became pregnant with her first child. The piece was in response to two other Olympic runners who made similar claims that the brand cut pay for pregnant athletes and new moms.
Nike responded with a new maternity policy for all of their sponsored athletes.
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Felix has often shared her story about facing a life-threatening pregnancy-related complication that resulted in an emergency C-section for the birth of her first child. Despite the terrifying premature childbirth, she said she felt pressure to compete at the same level and ended up breaking Usain Bolt’s world title record just 10 months post-birth.
During her appearance on CBS Mornings, she also spoke about receiving a $20 million grant from the Melissa French Gates Foundation to support Black maternal health, another topic for which she has advocated.
