Do you remember hearing that wearing heels might affect your fertility? Or seeing such claims published in a newspaper or online?
Well there is good news for heel-lovers who are trying to get pregnant.
There is absolutely no medical evidence that wearing high heels can negatively affect your ability to get pregnant. No appropriately qualified expert has ever come forward to say that wearing heels can damage reproductive capacity.
There is also no study that shows a difference in fertility between women who wear heels and those that do not. This is despite high heels almost certainly being the most studied item of clothing in human existence.
How could it be then that you might have heard differently?
The problem is the media.
Let me explain.
The sole source of the claim that heels might cause infertility appears to be a press release put out by a Mr Dax Moy as long ago as 2006.
The press release began by stating:
Leading UK posture and performance expert Dax Moy today warns female followers of fashion that the resurgence of the 5 inch-heel could seriously damage their health, not just by leading to postural problems, but also period pain and even infertility.
This should have sounded an obvious warning, since what exactly is a “posture and performance expert”? Who says they are “leading”? And what would they know about the intricacies of reproduction?
Moy continued, saying: “More important than the postural problems involved however, is the potential problems that high heels can cause in relation to fertility, menstrual cycles and abdominal function.”
Moy then confidently explained that walking in heels tilted the pelvis forward, allowing the abdominal contents to spill forward and concluded that this compressed internal organs: “If left unchecked this can lead to menstrual dysfunction and increases in period pains and well as affecting the ability to conceive.”
Of course there are huge difficulties with these claims. First, Moy never stated the basis on which his claims were made – they seemed to be his personal views of the workings of the inside of the female body.
He referred to no scientific or medical literature. And he identified no personal expertise that would have enabled him to make the statements.
Such matters ought to have been obvious to any journalist.
Nevertheless the story was picked up by multiple newspapers at the time. These included the Manchester Evening News (which described Dax Moy as a “health expert”) and the Mirror (which also described him as an “expert”). The Mirror’s claim was repeated as far away as India.
Worst of all, the papers sought no contrary views. They sought out no studies. They asked for no evidence. They interviewed no gynaecologists or physiological experts.
But it is more than just a lack of evidence that is at play here. The claim is also downright dubious.
If there really was a link between the shoes you wear and fertility, then wouldn’t people have spotted it by now?
If there really was a correlation (let alone causation) it might be thought that such an obvious thing might have been long since identified and the reasons for it properly explored.
Instead, the statement that heels can affect reproduction simply keeps getting repeated without there being a jot of evidence to support it.
For example, in 2020 author Tansy E Hoskins made certain comments about the damage caused by high heeled shoes. Those comments included the following statements:
There is there is no medical doubt that high heels are extremely damaging to the body if you wear them a lot. Like they damage your feet, your knees, your pelvis. They can all you know they can even like damage your reproductive capacity as a woman. They’re a nightmare, a physiological nightmare, and yet people do keep keep wearing them.
Hoskins’ comment that high heels can “damage your your reproductive capacity as a woman” is exactly the sort of untested, unproven and unhelpful comment that keeps circulating.
There is no basis for saying it at this point and no basis for alarming those trying to fall pregnant by guilt-tripping them over their shoes.
Fortunately, it does not seem that many women are taking these claims seriously.
If anything, the opposite might be true – heels might aid reproduction.
Given the evidence of the effect that a woman wearing heels can have on a man, it might be said that wearing heels is quite the pregnancy-promoter!