In the event of a heart attack, women are less likely to receive a massage than men because people who can resuscitate them are reluctant to touch their chest and bra.
- In France, about 80,000 people have a myocardial infarction each year.
- Only 68% of women having a cardiac arrest attack will be resuscitated against 73% of men.
“Women victims of a heart attack are less likely to be resuscitated, outside the hospital, than men. Why?”. So wrote Marjolijn Rodenburg, a Dutch intensive care nurse, in a post online in March at LinkedIn.
Unawareness of symptoms
According to the caregiver, patients are less likely to benefit from cardiac massage, because in the collective imagination, they are less likely to have a heart attack. Also, the symptoms of a myocardial infarction in women (for example: neck pain, vomiting, abdominal pain, fatigue, shortness of breath) are different from those of men, “which a lot of people don’t know”. “Bystanders are less likely to think it’s a heart problem and may think the patient is fainting”said Marjolijn Rodenburg.
According to the nurse, the chances of survival for women are lower than those of men in the event of a heart attack, because the people who could resuscitate them do not do it correctly, “due to the fragility of the female body and the presence of breasts”. “The resuscitation mannequins, on which people practice during the courses, are men and this is the norm”can we read in his post published on Linkedin.
Improving women’s chances of survival
To save the lives of patients, the nurse decided to give resuscitation lessons on a dummy with a chest, so that people are no longer embarrassed to touch the chest of heart attack victims. “With women, you just have to put your hands in the same place as with men when you start CPR, except it’s between the breasts. For many people, this is a threshold, in reason of intimacy. It turns out that many simply do not dare, and therefore refrain from resuscitating”, explained to the Dutch daily BN DeStem Marjolijn Rodenburg.
The nurse also stressed the importance of practicing undoing a bra, which can cause some discomfort. “During the course, you learn that you have to do it when you attach the electrodes of the automatic external defibrillator. You need a free body, and the metal bra strap is dangerous. This action is simply necessary, so it is also important to practice on a body that actually has breasts”, she concluded.
