Is there really a relationship between shoe size and pelvic bone size??

[hippolike]

This sounds like an old wives' tale I know, but I had an appointment with a midwife yesterday and during a discussion about natural births she happened to ask me what my shoe size was. When I said '4', she went "ooh". When I asked her how that was relevant, she said that small shoe size can be related to the size of your pelvic bone, making a natural/vaginal delivery more difficult. Has anyone else heard this before? Can it possibly be true?

[DrFluffy]

No - none at all. Ethnicity, build etc are more relevant. Caucasian pelvises are generally crap for childbirth though, small outlet

[DrFluffy]

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[cheekymonkey3791]

Thank god you said that DrFluffy I can be a 3-4 depending on show type lol! X

[DrFluffy in reply to cheekymonkey3791]

Haha!!

[cheekymonkey3791]

*shoe type (stupid autocorrect!) grr

[Skyblueboston]

Oh I'm a die four gone up to a five now, will be reading about this to see if its just a load of crap!

[Skyblueboston]

* size* Predictive text so annoying!

[Skyblueboston]

So height is a better predictor and shoe size has no relevance, 80% under 160 give birth vaginally

[gingerbaby]

Bugger, I'm a size 7 and when I read this I was like 'brilliant'......damn!!!!

[lyracat]

Oh my god it never ceases to amaze me how much crap midwives come out with. I'm a size three and had no trouble at all. My neighbour is a size four and squeezed out four big boys without pain relief.

[hippolike]

Thanks a lot, ladies! And thanks, in particular, Dr Fluffy, for the BMJ article - very helpful. It did sound pretty unlikely but I'm grateful to know for sure.

Still, it doesn't hugely inspire confidence that my midwife is feeding me information that the medical profession has disproved ...

[CheekyP]

Doh! Scary for me whatever then as am shoe size 4 and only 5 foot. Have quite big hips tho! ??

[KatieKrinklebum]

It's extremely rare that any woman can't give birth because of the size of her pelvis. In fact it's pretty much exclusively those who have grown up severely malnurished. Nature designed us for giving birth - for the most part of our evolution, this has been our primary if not only role in life! I looked into this, because I live in Brazil and there are loads of scare storys going round like that to try and get women to go for c-sections as it's a quick and easy option for the doctors and hospitals.

[hippolike]

Thanks Katie!