When England begin their defence of the Women’s Six Nations against Ireland on Saturday at Twickenham they will be without Zoe Stratford, Lark Atkin-Davies and Rosie Galligan as they prepare to become mothers for the first time. The England rugby league player Kelsey Gentles – who has returned to her sport as a different player and person – says the World Cup winners should embrace the imminent metamorphosis.

Gentles left the Women’s Super League as a sparkling outside back in 2023; when she returned the following year, having given birth to her daughter Maia, she was a prop who blasted holes in defensive lines. She enjoyed a glorious comeback, scoring the winning try as York Valkyrie clinched the Grand Final, but there were challenges along the way.

“There’s no cookie-cutter template to follow when you come back,” says Gentles, who made her Wigan debut last weekend. “Pregnancy isn’t easy. Every woman and her body reacts differently. I gained a lot of weight and was breastfeeding. I got really extreme morning sickness and a pelvic problem towards the end, so I could barely walk. Those things were difficult to deal with.

“I could no longer play on the wing. My body had changed, so I had to learn a whole new position. I was learning how to operate as a forward – tactically and physically – and was trying to not mess up too much. Mentally, the person you are pre-baby and the person you are when you come back is very different – and you have a child you have to keep alive. That was a difficult pill to swallow, not just for me, but for a lot of people around me as well. My priorities had shifted.”

Charlotte Caslick has excelled throughout her career, reaching the top in rugby league, union and sevens, but she knows she will face a new challenge when she returns to elite sevens, with its high-octane bursts of sprinting action, after giving birth to her first child. “Sevens is definitely a young person’s game,” says the 31-year-old World Cup winner and Olympic champion.

“The average age in my team is 23 – much younger than the Wallaroos. There were a few mums in the Wallaroos team that do juggle both, but sevens, with the schedule of the travelling and just the nature of the sport, attracts a younger crowd. I would love to mix and match sevens and 15s if I can, and be involved in another Olympics and a home World Cup but, obviously, my life is going to change pretty drastically.”

Caslick does not have any teammates who have overcome the unwieldy practicalities of being a mum on tour, but she has seen opponents return to the circuit. “Dhys Faleafaga, who played for New Zealand last season, has twins and her partner is also an All Black sevens player, so they were both travelling and had their twins at home,” says Caslick. “Given the world circuit, and being away for a few days every two weeks or every month, it will be a bit more challenging. I hope to come back. But 15s does give me a little bit more flexibility.”

Deciding when to announce their pregnancies is another issue for players. Knowing she was pregnant but wanting to wait until she was 12 weeks to go public, Caslick had to sit out the recent leg of the HSBC sevens tour in Perth. “It was hard making up reasons for why I’m not playing! It’s much easier being honest with people,” she says. “It’s the longest I haven’t been on the field for a while, but I’ve loved watching the girls. They’re having a great season.”

Plenty of athletes have returned from childbirth and matched their previous levels. Tennis player Elina Svitolina enjoyed a spectacular return after having a little girl, reaching the French Open quarter-finals and Wimbledon semi-finals in her first two grand slams as a mother; footballer Joy Fawcett had two children when she won the World Cup in 1999 and three when she won an Olympic gold medal in 2004; Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won world and Olympic gold medals after giving birth to her son Zyon; and the rugby league player Holly Speakman was a grandmother by the time she retired at the age of 42.

Gentles has taken Speakman’s place in the Wigan team so does not have to look far for inspiration, but returning to the sport has not been straightforward. She broke on to the international rugby league scene in 2019, when she played for England in the world nines in Perth – her chase back and try-saving tackle against Australia went viral – and was nominated for the Woman of Steel award.

She is now 26 and in a very different place emotionally and physically. “When I was 19, I was probably how some of the young girls feel now: you turn up, you’re just playing rugby, there’s no pressure, you’re just there having fun. After Maia was born, I came back pretty fast. I only really had a couple of months off. I was dealing with it by myself, at first, finding things out. Every week was different.

“I prioritised rugby when I was there, and it was very important to me, but I struggled to have the brain capacity to think about it when I left. You have a whole world going on outside. I was a player at York, but a mother everywhere else. It was hard to switch roles sometimes, especially when your baby might be sick, or teething. People expect the commitment that you had before you had a baby. I’m not the same person. My priorities have shifted.”

The pregnant England players missing the Six Nations – including Abbie Ward, who is expecting her second child – are benefiting from a new agreement that ensures they have 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave and funds for their children to accompany them to matches. England’s rugby league players are part-time so do not have that support. Gentles combines motherhood, playing for Wigan and her job at the children’s charity NSPCC.

When times were tough, she looked to her England teammate Georgie Dagger for advice. “When I was having difficult days, accepting my body for what it was, and how it changed, Georgie told me: ‘Kelsey, it took me three years to get back to how my body was before’. My husband [the former London Broncos player Jacob Ogden] would say: ‘You don’t need to keep doing this.’ But if I just give up, then anyone else that gets pregnant, the expectation will be that it’s too hard to come back. I didn’t want to send that message, that I was mentally weak.

“There’s a lot of talk about when women have babies you just become a mother and everything else falls by the wayside. I didn’t want to be that person. I love rugby. I don’t want to lose my identity. I wanted to still be Kelsey. I just have a child. I’m so glad I didn’t give up, because what example would that set for Maia?”

Gentles has a message for Caslick and the expectant England players: “Be kind to yourself, because there will probably be a lot of people that aren’t kind to you, that will compare you to your pre-baby self, when that person essentially doesn’t really exist any more. Being a mother is the greatest gift in the world and I don’t see why you can’t do both.”

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