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The more you know (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone
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A 2006 randomized trial in the BMJ lines up with that. Dean Seehusen and his team at Eisenhower Army Medical Center split 197 women into two groups, one with feet in metal stirrups and one with feet resting on the corners of the exam table.

Without stirrups, reported physical discomfort dropped from 30.4 to 17.2 on a 100-point scale, and the sense of vulnerability fell from 23.6 to 13.1, roughly 43% and 44% lower.

The quality of the Pap smears didn't differ significantly. As the authors put it, “Once a woman's feet are placed in stirrups, getting out is neither quick nor easy."

Study link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1513491/

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[–] 3 points 1 week ago

It sort of makes sense – I think there are gyno exam tables with stirrups more than 100 years old, and just think about who designed those and the environment they were used in. That was the era when women were hysterical if they had feelings, and all doctors were male.
And then we’ve just always done it that way, everyone accepted it, so why change it?

So, yeah, makes sense.

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