Women's Football Hub

Edited by Carolyn Kent – Women’s Football Hub

In this week’s Women’s Football Hub podcast, women’s football hub had the pleasure of speaking with two trailblazers in the world of sports pharmacy: Emily Shears and Dr Jessica Beal-Stahl. These incredible professionals are leading the charge in integrating pharmacy into sports medicine, ensuring that female athletes receive the best possible care when it comes to medications, supplements, and overall health management.

What is Sports Pharmacy?

Many people underestimate how much medications and supplements can impact an athlete’s performance, recovery, and overall health.

Dr Beal-Stahl emphasised that pharmacists play a crucial role in ensuring that athletes are using safe, legal, and effective treatments while complying with anti-doping regulations like those set by WADA. Meanwhile, Emily Shears highlighted how sports pharmacists also help manage chronic conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, and even eczema—conditions that are often overlooked in high-performance settings.

A Day in the Life of a Sports Pharmacist

What does a typical day look like for a sports pharmacist embedded within a football club? According to Emily, it involves:

✅ One-on-one health check-ins with players
✅ Case conferencing with medical staff, doctors, physiotherapists, and dietitians
✅ Education sessions on medication management, contraception, and menstrual health
✅ Collaboration with coaches to ensure that any medication side effects don’t impact an athlete’s performance

One example Emily shared was the importance of contraceptive choice for female athletes. If a player experiences heavy periods, she works alongside medical professionals to find solutions that won’t impact training or match-day performance.

Common Medication Challenges for Athletes

Athletes face unique medication-related challenges, including:

• Forgetting important medications such as inhalers (a nightmare for players with asthma!)
• Ensuring that medications comply with anti-doping regulations
• Managing ADHD medication in a way that does not negatively impact nutrition or body composition
• Addressing menstrual health concerns and how they interact with training and performance

Dr Beal-Stahl, who works with youth and collegiate athletes, stressed that education is key. Many young athletes turn to social media or unreliable sources for supplement advice, which can be dangerous. By integrating sports pharmacy into clubs, young players can make informed, safe decisions about their health.

The Female Athlete: Special Considerations

One of the biggest takeaways from our conversation was the lack of research on medications in female athletes. Many clinical drug trials have been conducted only on men, meaning that women’s hormonal cycles, body composition, and metabolism have largely been ignored in pharmaceutical research.

Emily highlighted that female athletes face additional considerations when it comes to medication, including:

📌 Managing conditions such as endometriosis and PCOS
📌 The impact of under-fuelling on hormone levels
📌 Using supplements such as magnesium and creatine to support menstrual health
📌 Choosing the right contraceptive options that won’t negatively affect performance

Dr Beal-Stahl also noted that pharmacists help navigate therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) for drug-tested athletes, ensuring that necessary medications are legally and safely prescribed.

The Future of Sports Pharmacy in Women’s Football

With sports pharmacy officially recognised by the International Federation of Sports Medicine, we’re likely to see a boom in demand for sports pharmacists over the next five to ten years. Both Emily and Jessica predict that sports pharmacists will become a core part of multidisciplinary teams in elite women’s football, helping athletes optimise their health, avoid unnecessary injuries, and maximise performance.

Key Takeaways

🔹 Sports pharmacy is a vital, growing field that helps athletes manage medications, supplements, and chronic conditions.

🔹 Female athletes face unique medical challenges, from menstrual health to medication metabolism differences.

🔹 Education and collaboration with medical staff, coaches, and athletes are essential for effective health management.

🔹 The future of women’s football will likely include more integration of sports pharmacists to support athlete well-being.

Final Thoughts: Why Every Team Needs a Sports Pharmacist

If your club is considering integrating a sports pharmacist, both Emily and Jessica encourage teams to start small—whether through consultations or part-time roles—to see the benefits firsthand. The impact on athlete health, performance, and compliance with anti-doping regulations is too significant to ignore.

📢 Join the Conversation! Do you think sports pharmacists should be a standard part of women’s football teams? Let us know in the comments! 👇⚽

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.
📢 Follow Emily Shears and Dr Jessica Beal-Stahl on LinkedIn for more insights into sports pharmacy!

#WFHPodcast #WomensFootball #SportsPharmacy #FemaleAthletes #PerformanceOptimisation

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This blog post was created with assistance from OpenAI’s ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2025).