到 1770 年代，钢被用于撑杆，这增加了它们的强度，但没有增加它们的柔韧性。由于更坚固的逗留使系紧的系带成为可能，医生和其他人表达了对健康问题的担忧，例如 1775 年通信中的评论："我希望斯帕罗小姐不会陷入你们黄蜂腰女士的荒谬时尚。普林格尔医生宣称，他的四个病人因这种愚蠢（实际上是邪恶）而殉道，当他们被打开时，很明显他们的死亡是由海峡系带引起的[原文如此]。尽管关于直系带危险的告诫在十八和十九世纪很常见，但瓦莱丽·斯蒂尔（Valerie Steele）最近的学术研究对这一时期许多"紧系带死亡"故事的现实提出了质疑。

By the 1770s, steel was being used in stays, which increased their strength, though not their flexibility. With the tight lacing made possible by stronger stays, doctors and others voiced health concerns, such as this comment from a 1775 correspondence: "I hope Miss Sparrow will not fall into the absurd fashion of ye wasp-waisted ladies. Dr. Pringle declares he has had four of his patients martyrs to that folly (indeed wickedness), and when they were opened it was evident that their deaths were occasioned by strait laceing [sic]." Although admonitions on the dangers of straight lacing are common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, recent scholarship by Valerie Steele has called into question the reality of the many "death by tight lacing" stories of the period.