It took a firestorm of negative media coverage and many years of needling, but the National Collegiate Athletic Association has finally suggested some guidelines for protecting pregnant athletes.

The guidelines, approved by the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors in January, ensure that pregnant athletes do not lose their scholarships for one year.

Over the next few days, the NCAA plans to notify athletics departments about a new Web site and other materials they can share with female athletes about the risks of becoming pregnant and how to avoid medical complications of pregnancy while playing.

The guidelines recommend that NCAA institutions add such information to their student-athlete handbooks, but do not require it. In other words, there are no consequences for failure to share the information.

Elizabeth Sorensen, a nursing professor at Wright State University who pressured the NCAA to develop the guidelines and later helped write them, is grateful for the “huge first step.” But she says the NCAA didn’t go far enough.

“I think it will take five more years (if ever) before we actually see a cultural change toward viewing college-athlete pregnancy as a health event, not a moral event, and before athletes actually feel comfortable stepping forward and asking for help,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “I’d like to see the NCAA make direct efforts to reach out to student-athletes, not just their schools, with this knowledge.” —Brad Wolverton