Why Aren’t There Female CPR Mannequins?

Research shows that women are less likely to receive CPR when they need it, and fixing that might require introducing training mannequins with breasts. Learn about a project that’s trying to help in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Voga bamb here. Breasts, to put it mildly,
can sometimes get in the way. They're the recipients of
some unwanted attention. It, just to be fair, some wanted attention.
They can make it hard to find properly fitting clothing,
and they require all kinds of special and sometimes unpredictable maintenance.

(00:25):
They can cause back pain, can hurt during exercise, and
can be strapped down by bras, which are often uncomfortable
and almost always expensive. All of this is inconvenient and annoying,
but not really a matter of life and death. But
did it ever occur to you that breasts might be
the reason that you might not be administered CPR if
you need it. It's true, and one New York based

(00:47):
creative agency is taking the initiative to try to change that.
The problem is this, those who have formally or informally
learned CPR, or who are at least confident enough to
attempt it in a situation where it might do more
good than harm, are overwhelmingly comfortable only if the chest
of the person in need of CPR is reasonably flat.
In other words, if it resembles CPR dummies, Female breasts

(01:11):
get in the way, and research shows that those who
would be inclined to perform CPR on a cardiac arrest
victim in need are less likely to do so if
there are breasts complicating the situation. Since it's mostly women
who have breasts, it's mostly women who are subject to
this kind of probably unintentional discrimination, So how much of
an impact does this have? A research indicates women are

(01:33):
twenty seven percent less likely to receive CPR if the
experience a cardiac arrest incident in public, since prompt administration
of cprs key in such situations that could indeed be
a matter of life and death. But enter the woll Mannequin.
The Womannequin is a training brov sorts to help bring
equality to CPR. The Womannequin is a fabric add on

(01:54):
that bestows a standard CPR dummy with breasts so people
can learn CPR in a way that will hopefully keep
them from being scared to perform the lifesaving procedure on
approximately half of the adult population. The idea is to
get people used to the idea that performing CPR on
a woman means that, yes, there will be some hand
to breast contact, but we spoke via email with the

(02:15):
Joane Agency's co founder and chief creative officer, Jamie Robinson.
Via email, she said, there are so many ways women
are treated differently and this resulted in them dying in
the streets with nobody rushing into help. It seemed like
an issue that was solvable and comes directly from a
lack of education and awareness. The performing CPR and a
woman is a normal and necessary thing. The O mannequin

(02:38):
took about four months to develop, from the time the
Joane team first came up with the idea to its
reveal in June of twenty nineteen. Of course, Joan Creative
enlisted the help of medical experts to ensure that the
womannequan is as useful and accurate as possible. That included
Dr Audrey Bluer, the author of the study that inspired
the entire endeavor, who is currently an epidemiologist and a

(03:00):
citation scientist at Duke University. Joan shared the process with
Bluer and acknowledged that the team was fortunate to have
that opportunity. The Joan team also worked closely with other
doctors and experts in CPR, including the New York based
Frontline CPR, a school that was closely involved throughout the process,
and the United State of Women, a national organization that

(03:21):
connects and amplifies the work of organizations and individuals who
are addressing inequalities. These partnerships ensure that the Womannequan is
properly designed and has the credibility necessary to get it
into the right hands to make an impact as intended.
Joan isn't finished with the Womannequin. In fact, the hardest
part maybe yet to come, convincing gatekeepers that it's necessary

(03:44):
and useful despite the overwhelming evidence that women are currently
underserved in this area. Jones team says that they hope
to get Womannequin into every CPR school in the country
by next year, motivated by a goal that cardiac intervention
saves lives. Furthermore, Joan isn't driven by profit. Robinson says
that the idea was to make well Mannequin is easy

(04:04):
to replicate as possible to encourage widespread adoption, and thus
its pattern is available to anyone with open sourced plans
available for free download. One of the elements of this
story that initially caught our editorial team's eye is that
joan creative, initiated the Womannequin project simply out of an
opportunity and a need to do good. It's unusual, but

(04:25):
not unheard of, for creative agencies to spend time and
resources on internal projects that aren't funded by a client.
Usually the goal for such a project is publicity, and
to be sure, there's an element of that in the
Womannequin story, but in this case there may be a
measurable improvement in women's lives and the saving of them
as well. Today's episode was written by Shery's three Wit

(04:51):
and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more on
this and lots of other inclusive topics, visit our home planet,
how stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts from
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