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Little FeetWhy little feet are a big responsibilityAt Future Feet we know a baby’s foot needs to be looked after very, very carefully. As a baby’s foot is very, very flexible, it can easily be squeezed into a badly fitting shoe, storing up trouble for the future. The correct fit stops this happening in the first place. Every parent wants to protect their child’s feet and encourage natural growth and development.  No other part of a new born baby will create more cries of amazement than the tiny toes, scrunching up when tickled: baby’s foot contains no fully formed bones at all, the shape of your child’s foot is simply mapped out in soft, squidgy cartilage with no discernible arch. As the child grows this cartilage “ossifies” becoming more and more solid, all the time protected by a layer of subcutaneous tissue (that’s puppy fat to you and me). This explains why baby’s foot is so cute and squishy, but also why it’s so vulnerable.
Leonardo Da Vinci called the human foot a “miracle of natural engineering”. It’s easy to see why. The fully grown human foot has more bones than any other part of the body, 26 to be precise, that’s in addition to the 19 muscles, 107 ligaments and 250,000 sweat glands (no surprise to parents of teenagers). It’s actually unusual for a child to have two feet exactly the same size. That’s why our trained fitters ALWAYS measure both feet. Some kids even have feet so different that they need two different size shoes.   At Future Feet we know a baby’s foot needs to be looked after very, very carefully. As a baby’s foot is very flexible, it can easily be squeezed into a badly fitting shoe, storing up trouble for the future. The correct fit stops this happening in the first place. Every parent wants to protect their child’s feet and encourage natural growth and development.
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