Go Red for Women’s Day Shines Light on Female-Focused CPR
Published Thursday, February 1, 2024 10:00 am
This Go Red for Women’s Day let’s learn about the statistics that show why so many women are unable to receive the proper cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) than men.
Go Red for Women's Day has been celebrated every year on the first Friday of February since 2004. This holiday, started by the American Heart Association (AHA), has brought awareness around women and their greatest health threat - cardiovascular disease (CVD).
According to AHA, 45% of women ages 20+ have some form of heart disease, so why is it that women have a higher risk of heart disease, yet a lower survival rate than men when suffering from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)?
Heartsmart’s Female-CPR Study
The Heartsmart team wanted answers! Heartsmart conducted a survey involving 60 randomly selected individuals to assess how many people have learned proper techniques for performing CPR on females.
Out of the 60 participants, 52% indicated they were taught how to perform CPR on the female anatomy in a CPR training course. The remaining, 49% of participants, reported they either lacked CPR training entirely (22%) or had received training without specifics on proper chest compressions for females (27%).
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Image Credit: John Cobb
Not only were half of the participants questioned not trained in female-focused CPR but 27% said they would not be comfortable performing CPR on a stranger who identified as female.
When asked why participants are uncomfortable, many answers were unanimously around the following reasonings:
- Afraid of being accused of sexual assault
- Uneasy with giving mouth-to-mouth to a female stranger
- Uncomfortable about cutting off a stranger's bra
- Nervous about exposing a woman’s chest in public
- Lack of confidence in performing chest compressions correctly on a female chest
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Image Credit: John Cobb
It only makes sense that CPR-trained individuals would feel more confident in an emergency situation than non-CPR-trained individuals. The issue with this is that even CPR-trained individuals are uncomfortable performing CPR on a woman unless they have received some type of additional CPR-female training.
Why is that? Take a look at the manikin itself. They are designed with the male anatomy, training students to dismay the obstacle that makes so many uncomfortable - the female chest!
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Image Credit: John Cobb
Go Red with PRESTAN Female Accessory
The PRESTAN Female Accessory has been designed to change that! The PRESTAN Female Accessory is a cost-effective add-on that allows the female anatomy to be represented in training. This breast piece can be purchased for any PRESTAN CPR manikin and easily snapped onto the chest piece.
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Image Credit: John Cobb
John Cobb, Program Director, from Coastal Emergency Medical Skills, incorporates the PRESTAN Female Accessory in his own CPR and AED training courses.
John says, “The inclusion of female CPR manikins in our classes has not only provided me with valuable insights as an instructor but also allows the students an opportunity to feel comfortable performing CPR on a male or female during an emergency situation.”
As an instructor, John noticed that students initially may seem hesitant to perform CPR on the female manikin, but as they apply what they learn to perform good quality CPR, they become more confident and less concerned about the gender of the manikin.
“Providing anatomically diverse manikins allows the opportunity to teach students the correct hand placement, compression techniques, and AED pad placement. This has improved confidence and decreased chances of hesitancy in a real-life situation,” John adds.
Proper training on both female and male anatomy can help improve CPR survival rates for the female population. For females to have a higher risk for heart disease than their male counterparts, it only makes sense to add female-focused CPR training to CPR training courses. It’s time to take a stand, Go Red for Women, and add the PRESTAN Female Accessory to your CPR training kit.
More resources on the PRESTAN Female Accessory:
- Female CPR Training & What You Need to Know
- Building Confidence to Save Women’s Lives
- Bridging the Gender Gap in CPR Training
Heartsmart is one of the largest privately owned automated external defibrillator (AED) companies in the industry. Conveniently find all major AED brands and their accessories along with PRESTAN CPR products like the PRESTAN Female Accessory on Heartsmart.
PRESTAN Products, LLC is headquartered in the United States and operates in the heart of the country near Cleveland, Ohio. Unlike any other branded or private labelled CPR Training Manikin available throughout the world, all PRESTAN CPR Training Manikins are Made in the USA. PRESTAN is committed to building confidence in CPR/AED training instructors and their students by offering a full range of CPR Training Manikins and AED Trainers which are intuitive, durable, cost effective and provide immediate feedback.
Author - Gabrielle Sellitti, Heartsmart Marketing Communications Specialist
Date Published - February 1, 2024