Abortion doping

Abortion doping refers to the rumoured practice of purposely inducing pregnancy for athletic performance-enhancing benefits, then aborting the pregnancy.

Hormonal and other changes in pregnancy affect physical performance. In the first three months it is known that a woman’s body produces a natural surplus of red blood cells, which are well supplied with oxygen-carrying hemoglobin, in order to support the growing fetus. A study of athletes before and after pregnancy by Professor James Pivarnik at the Human Energy Research laboratory in Michigan State University has found there is a 60 per cent increase in blood volume and that this could improve the body’s ability to carry oxygen to muscles by up to 30 per cent. This would have obvious positive effects on aerobic capacity. Other potential advantages are obtained from the surge in hormones that pregnancy induces, predominantly progesterone and estrogen, but also testosterone, which could increase muscle strength. Increases in hormones like relaxin, which loosens the hip joints to prepare for childbirth, may have a performance-enhancing effect on joint mobility.

Several world records have been set by female athletes shortly after giving birth to their first child. This is accepted as a natural and unintended event.

Rumours arose in the 1970s and 1980s that such physiological improvements during pregnancy led to attempts by East German athletes to enhance their performance by getting pregnant and then having an abortion.Prince Alexandre de Merode, then vice-president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), supported stories that Eastern European athletes do get artificially inseminated and then abort two to three months later in an attempt to boost athletic performance. The prince went on to claim he knew a Swiss doctor who was performing the procedure; however, it has yet to be proven. The procedure was determined not to be illegal by the IOC.

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Wikipedia