This month, I’m all about getting women’s bras off. Yes, it’s a bit chilly for all that, but frankly the person wearing the bra isn’t going to care too much!
Fellow first aid trainer Jenny Legg has launched the #BraOffDefibOn campaign after alarming statistics reveal that women stand a much smaller chance of receiving CPR (women are 27% less likely to have CPR done on them, compared to men), and if a defibrillator is used, their chance of survival is being seriously curtailed because their bra is being left on.
So, why are women not offered the same survival chances as men? There are many reasons, but amongst them are the rescuer worrying about:
- Being accused of inappropriate behaviour
- Exposing women’s breasts
- Breaking ribs
- Getting it wrong
So, let’s deal with them one by one.
Being accused of inappropriate behaviour
– as a woman I might potentially be on the receiving end of your CPR. I can promise you that at this point in my life, I do not care about anything except your willingness to give me a chance of survival, and your behaviour is far from inappropriate. As a larger lady, there is plenty to concern a potential rescuer about my chest! But when I’m on my back, even when wearing a well-supporting bra, my breasts will move slightly to each side and there will be plenty of space for you to place your hands to give me CPR without accidently brushing my chest – but if you do, I really don’t care. In addition, the Social Action Responsibility and Heroism Act (SARAH Act) 2015 makes provision to protect you in your social responsibility of doing CPR by specifying that a rescuer can assume that an unconscious casualty would give them permission for lifesaving intervention if they were able to do so. Crack on!
Exposing a woman’s breasts
– this isn’t necessary for CPR alone, but if you fail to remove my bra when applying defibrillator pads and delivering a shock, there is a much lower chance of the defibrillator delivering a successful outcome. Why? Because pressing the ‘shock’ button sends an electric shock between the two pads with the aim of shocking the heart – but if I’m wearing an underwired bra the electricity will follow the wires rather than travel where it needs to. There will be a pair of tuff cut scissors with the defib – use them to cut off the bra, either down the centre or if necessary at the side (underneath an arm) and move it away from my skin. You don’t need to pull out the back, but make sure the front of the bra isn’t touching me. You might need to gently lift my left breast to position the left defib pad on my side – if necessary, just get on with it. If I don’t get the defib on me in the right position, it won’t have the optimum opportunity to work.
Breaking ribs
– you might break my ribs if you do CPR. You do have to push hard and fast, pushing down around 1/3 of my chest wall, so there’s a chance you might break a rib. Broken ribs heal; even if you puncture my lung, it will only matter if I survive, and even then, the medics will sort it out. If you don’t do CPR, I’m not going to survive – how can a broken rib or two be worse than that?
Getting it wrong
– see above. I will die if you do nothing, so how can it get any worse if you don’t do it as perfectly as a paramedic? Push hard and fast, twice a second, in the centre of the chest. There’s not a lot that can be wrong with that. You might not succeed in saving me (the statistics are unfortunately against me) but at least you will have given me the best chance. Thank you.
For more information on the campaign, check out
www.braoffdefibon.co.uk
and if there’s anything you want to check or if you have any concerns you want to discuss, don’t hesitate to
contact me.
All our regulated courses cover CPR and using a defibrillator, and we ALWAYS plead with our learners to take a woman’s bra off!