Mobile Phone Use During Pregnancy Causes Neurological Problems in Infants

(NaturalNews) The first large-scale study to examine the link between mobile phone use during pregnancy and later behavioral problems in children mostly come back with a conclusion that such places phone use under the babies at risk.

Researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Aarhus, Denmark, 13,519 women who gave birth in Denmark in the late 1990s about their usage of mobile phones during pregnancy, and their children to use the telephone until the age of seven. Because the use of cellular phones is less prevalent a decade ago, nearly half of women in the study did not use the phone during pregnancy, or used only rarely.

Women who have used devices to two or three times a day during pregnancy were 54 percent more likely to give birth to children who develop behavioral problems when they reached school age that women who do not use them. The increased risk of behavioral problems with the mother of mobile phone use during pregnancy.

If the children themselves used the phone while the very young, they were 80 percent more likely to suffer from behavioral difficulties, 25 percent more likely to suffer emotional problems, 34 percent more likely to have the difficulty relating to their age, 35 percent more likely to be hyperactive and 49 percent more likely to have behavior problems than children who did not use mobile phones.

The results were published in the journal Epidemiology.

One of the principal researchers, Leeka Kheifets of UCLA, had declared in writing that there was "no evidence of a causal link between exposure to radio frequency [including those of mobile phones], and any adverse effects on health. " A well-known skeptic of the connection between mobile phone use and health or behavioral problems, Kheifets admitted to being surprised by the findings of the current study.

Researchers have tried to demonstrate that some other confounding factors - such as smoking during pregnancy, socioeconomic status or a family history of mental illness - caused behavioral effects observed. But when they corrected for these factors, the contribution of mobile phones has become in fact statistically stronger.

They do not know of any biological mechanism by which mobile phones can cause behavioral problems, researchers have requested that their results should be interpreted with caution. "They also suggested that there might be a correlation between the use of cell phones and another factor that leads to behavioral problems - such as abandonment by a mother who spends too much time on the phone.

But he conceded that "if [the results] are real, they would have the implications of major public health."

Millham Saturday at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the University of Washington School of Public Health, said he is certain the study results are accurate. Recent research conducted in Canada on pregnant rats demonstrated that radiation similar to that of mobile phones has caused structural changes in the brain of the fetus, he said.

Millham is considered a pioneer in research on the relationship between mobile phone use and adverse effects on health.

The study results came shortly after the Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection has issued new warnings concerning the use of mobile phones by pregnant women and children. The use of cellphones by children may lead to short-term disruption of memory, decline of attention, decreased learning and cognitive abilities, increased irritability ", while the use long term may cause "depressive syndrome [and] the nerve degeneration of the brain structures."

The committee recommended that pregnant women and children to limit their exposure to mobile phones, warning that the risk to the health of aircraft is not much lower than the risk to the health of children against tobacco or alcohol.