You can enforce it:
#define C_ASSERT(expr) extern char CAssertExtern[(expr)?1:-1]
C_ASSERT(sizeof(struct myStruct) == 7); // or 8, whichever you want
Whenever the size diverges from 7, the code will simply cease to compile.
You can do similar things to enforce offsets of structure members. You'll need the offsetof()
macro for that.