The link between foot health, spinal health and the benefits of soft-soled shoes on developing feet.

"Please welcome a new arrival to the list of obsolete wisdom for parents:  Babies walk best in stiff leather shoes.

Not true, say researchers at Connecticut Children's Medical Center who spent months studying the way babies learn to walk. With the help of computer assisted foot pressure sensors and slow-motion video, researchers learned that, from ther first steps, babies walk with a rocking heel-toe motion just like adults.

The findings toppled the long-held conventional wisdom that the first steps are flat-footed stomps. With that assumption, the stiff, high-topped baby shoe was born, designed by shoe companies to support flat-footed steps and wobbly ankles.

But babies' ankles, it turns out, are perfectly stable from the beginning, making the traditional high topped shoe unnecessary.

The conclusion, said Sylvia Ounpuu, a movment specialist at the children's medical center who directed the study, is that barefoot is best for babies"

Hartford Courant
independent expert, summer 2000

Editors Note:
When barefoot is not practical - Bobux soft soled leather shoes are the next best thing.