After a heart attack, people need help and support to resume their normal lives, and that includes their sex lives. For most people, it’s safe to resume sex within a couple of weeks of having a heart attack. But too few people—and especially too few women—get the advice they need from a doctor to help them take that step.

In a study of 1,760 people who’d had a heart attack (discussed at a recent American Heart Association conference), researchers found 46 percent of men had discussed with their doctors their plans for resuming sex, before they left the hospital. But only 35 percent of women had a similar conversation.

One year after their heart attack, 68 percent of men had resumed their sex lives, compared with 41 percent of women. Of course some of this discrepancy could be that women didn’t want to talk to their doctors about sex, or didn’t want to resume their sex lives. But, equally, it could be that doctors didn’t broach the subject with women. Taking other factors into account—such as health, having a regular partner, and age—researchers found that whether doctors talked to their patients had a big effect on whether or not they were back to their usual level of sexual activity a year after the heart attack.