Former UFC champ Carla Esparza returns to training 4 months after childbirth
Former two-time UFC women’s strawweight champion Carla Esparza has returned to the mats a little more than four months after giving birth to her first child.
“The Cookie Monster” Esparza, 36, delivered her son Donovan Lomeli, on Sep. 23, 2023, after five-hours of active labor.
“1st day back on the mats since November 2022! Feels so great to be back. 😁💪🏽” Esparza wrote on social media. “Thx to some of my fav rolling buddies!”
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Just a few days prior to her returning to the gym, Esparza posted a message about her removal from the UFC rankings
“Just for the record 😉 I keep receiving messages so I wanted to clear it up,” the former champ wrote. “Maybe I was removed for inactivity🤷🏻♀️. I am slowly biding my time and building my body and pelvic floor back up according to my PT’s recommendation. During the postpartum period there is relaxin and progesterone in the joints and their surrounding structures (especially since I am exclusively breastfeeding) which causes a slackening of the ligaments and can greatly increase the chance of injury during training. Just trying to have an intelligent approach to my comeback and do everything in my power to avoid an injury setback.”
Esparza became the first ever UFC women’s strawweight champion in 2014 when she defeated Rose Namajunas in the Ultimate Fighter season 20 finale. She would recapture that belt with the same opponent in 2022 in a lackluster title bout at UFC 274. Esparza then dropped the title to Weili Zhang in her very next outing. She then delivered her first child less than a year later.
