News >> Browse Articles >> General Health
Warning: Using mobile phone while pregnant can harm baby
The Independent
May 19, 2008
Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems, according to authoritative research.
A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.
The results of the study, the first of its kind, have taken the top scientists who conducted it by surprise. But they follow warnings against both pregnant women and children using mobiles by the official Russian radiation watchdog body, which believes that the peril they pose “is not much lower than the risk to children’s health from tobacco or alcohol”.
The research – at the universities of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Aarhus, Denmark – is to be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology and will carry particular weight because one of its authors has been sceptical that mobile phones pose a risk to health.
UCLA’s Professor Leeka Kheifets – who serves on a key committee of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, the body that sets the guidelines for exposure to mobile phones – wrote three and a half years ago that the results of studies on people who used them “to date give no consistent evidence of a causal relationship between exposure to radiofrequency fields and any adverse health effect”.
The scientists questioned the mothers of 13,159 children born in Denmark in the late 1990s about their use of the phones in pregnancy, and their children’s use of them and behaviour up to the age of seven. As they gave birth before mobiles became universal, about half of the mothers had used them infrequently or not at all, enabling comparisons to be made.
They found that mothers who did use the handsets were 54 per cent more likely to have children with behavioural problems and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation. And when the children also later used the phones they were, overall, 80 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties with behaviour. They were 25 per cent more at risk from emotional problems, 34 per cent more likely to suffer from difficulties relating to their peers, 35 per cent more likely to be hyperactive, and 49 per cent more prone to problems with conduct.
The scientists say that the results were “unexpected”, and that they knew of no biological mechanisms that could cause them. But when they tried to explain them by accounting for other possible causes – such as smoking during pregnancy, family psychiatric history or socio-economic status – they found that, far from disappearing, the association with mobile phone use got even stronger.
They add that there might be other possible explanations that they did not examine – such as that mothers who used the phones frequently might pay less attention to their children – and stress that the results “should be interpreted with caution” and checked by further studies. But they conclude that “if they are real they would have major public health implications”.
Professor Sam Milham, of the blue-chip Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and the University of Washington School of Public Health – one of the pioneers of research in the field – said last week that he had no doubt that the results were real. He pointed out that recent Canadian research on pregnant rats exposed to similar radiation had found structural changes in their offspring’s brains.
The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection says that use of the phones by both pregnant women and children should be “limited”. It concludes that children who talk on the handsets are likely to suffer from “disruption of memory, decline of attention, diminishing learning and cognitive abilities, increased irritability” in the short term, and that longer-term hazards include “depressive syndrome” and “degeneration of the nervous structures of the brain”.
ablack
8 months ago
46 comments
This article is absurd. I'm sorry, but the first sentence in the second paragraph through me off. A reportedly "GIANT study" surveyed just over 13,000??? Are you serious? In 2006, there were 73.7 million children under age 18 in the United States and over a million children in Denmark ! They must have not taken statistics because that isn't even a representative sampling.
kmosarwana
about 1 year ago
2 comments
nice peace of work, but explain futher what is in the cell phone that is killing us.
lovemyjob
about 1 year ago
8 comments
ok well since every second child is diagnosed with ADHD, how do we know what is causeing it. well if you ask me doctors are too quick to condemn a child with ADHD at the first sign of excitement. one day chocolate is cureing cancer and the next it causes it. what about bottled water compared to tap water? can we ever be sure WHAT it is that causes these conditions ? how do we know that diclectin isnt causeing all these problems? or hairspray? its all speculation to me.
Pioneer
about 1 year ago
10 comments
this is somewhat true but further studiesand researches is needed...their are a lot of factors in our invironment that needs to be considered.
melba
about 1 year ago
88 comments
somethings bound to kill us??
midwifetm
about 1 year ago
2 comments
i am happy i just got rid of my cell phone i am usually paronoid about that kind of stuff.
frankiecash
about 1 year ago
82 comments
Oh just shoot me... I don't believe everything I read especially when it has to do with studies dealing with behaviors. Mercy. Page filler the Independent needed to make deadline.
theala
about 1 year ago
330 comments
What you guys are talking about (re your personal experiences) is called "anecdotal evidence." These are associations that many people make because as human we like to think in terms of causation, "B happened at the same time A did, therefore B must have been caused by A." Such causal relationships have to be investigated scientifically, with quantitative methods, to prove the relationship actually exists. Many times it is found not to, which is why anecdotal evidence is looked at skeptically by the scientific community. I won't believe cell phones cause ADHD or any other problems with fetuses until someone shows me a well grounded quantitative study proving it. As far as I'm concerned, any claims of neurological issues being connected with cell phones is coincidence.
Sboyd
about 1 year ago
2 comments
I observed my own daughter 18mos, just yesterday play with another child around the same age, 22mos. My child ran around in circles, making noises and giggling with the energy of a steam engine while the slightly older child was very timid and quiet or as we like to call it "Well behaved". My daughter always has wild hair (as I did as a child) and won't let me near it with a hair tie or barrett. Im just lucky she lets me comb it from time to time. While the other child's mother had been able to not only tie her child's hair up but also add small braids inside. So here you have my wild child and a very neat, well behaved child. Consider this though, I do use a cell phone in fact I haven't had a landline in 4 yrs. Now as some would immediately try and link my child's hyper activity to that I will tell you she is just being a kid and is no diffrent than her wild mama (keep in mind my mother did not own a cell phone until 2000) There is a picture of me when I was 2. The story behind it was they told me to clean my room then they came to check on me and I had stripped naked and made the biggest mess I could with my toys and oh yes the face I was making was very mischievous! I too was very diffrent from my older sister (just 13mos older) who was always well behaved and tempered while I threw myself on the floor and c/o inability to walk when told to go somewhere. My parents always said I was a "social butterfly" and "walked to the beat of a diffrent drum." I have always been more outgoing than my sister while she has walked the straight and narrow. But what is this new thing that if everychild is not perfectly behaved and alike then now suddenly they are drugged to adjust for behavior? HAVE PHARMACEUTICALS REPLACED PARENTING? Ok let me back up I do believe that in some cases ADD/ADHD drugs may be neccessary, however there are an alarming amount of children taking them. In my opinion children cannot be properly diagnosed until they are closer to adolescence. We need to seperate Immaturity and ADD/ADHD diagnoses. They are only children and yes they are not as well behaved as the Cleavers but look at our world today! I am never upset when I pick up my child from daycare and she is covered in God knows what, I only smile and say, "Hey NuNu! You had fun today didn't you!" I measure how fun her day was by how filthy she gets afterall she's just a baby.
gmelin
about 1 year ago
44 comments
maybe this is true but there are lots of things that one should consider that may lead to the behavioral problems of the child. if mobile phones has an effect on the fetal development, who is just exposed for 9 months, it follows that there will be a great effect on us who is using these phones not only 3 times a day.....
Terisa_Dill
about 1 year ago
2 comments
It's not just boys. My 12 year old daughter has ADHD and I remember being on the cell phone alot when I was pregnant with her. One of those big cell phones that looked like a brick. Makes me wonder if her problems is my fault?
SVine
about 1 year ago
4 comments
amen, Queenpita!!
kimberlygtrrz
about 1 year ago
2 comments
Enough of the fear spreading, how can one delineate it is the use of cell-phones resulting in behavioral problems? So many more factors that exist that would be more contributory to the situation of behavior: dietary food additives, environment factors, divorce rates, parental coping skills, the list goes on and on... Surely pregnant moms have enough real fears, we do not need the media manufacturing any new alarms--- just goes to show, a "study" can be found to prove just about anything... namaste
cherrylouD_solivioRN
about 1 year ago
2 comments
really, ??? wow, this is really some trivia.... I think everyone should know about this...
Account Removed
about 1 year ago
Cell phones are hazardous to your health........when you're driving and not paying attention. or you're texting while driving or when you're in the grocery store standing in the middle of the isle where no one can get past you, and there is this tremendous urge to run your butt over with the shopping cart, full of groceries, weighing about 200lbs or it rings during a film, which people have paid money to see and you hold a conversation with the caller. OR when you're walking and not paying attention and you walk in front of a moving vehicle.