Authored By:
Birks L, Guxens M, Papadopoulou E, Alexander J, Ballester F, Estarlich M, Gallastegi M, Ha M, Haugen M, Huss A, Kheifets L, Lim H, Olsen J, Santa-Marina L, Sudan M, Vermeulen R, Vrijkotte T, Cardis E, Vrijheid MThis meta-analysis investigated the association between mobile phone use during pregnancy and behavioural problems in the offspring. Five cohorts from five different countries were included in the study, resulting in a total of 83,884 mother-child pairs. The information on mobile phone use was obtained via questionnaires – asked during pregnancy in three cohorts and asked when the children were seven years old in two cohorts. The children’s behaviour was analysed when their age was between four and seven years. For overall behavioural and emotional problems, no statistically significant association was found. There was an increased risk of hyperactivity/inattention problems with increased use of mobile phone during pregnancy (medium mobile phone users: odds ratio, OR = 1.11, 95% confidence intervals, 95% CI = 1.01 – 1.22; high users: OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.12, 1.48). The authors concluded that maternal mobile phone use during pregnancy may increase the risk of behavioural problems in the offspring.
Published In:
Environ Int 2017The 2015 review by the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) on “Potential Health Effects of Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields” discussed epidemiological and animal studies on adverse developmental effects of radiofrequency (RF) fields. The SCENIHR review mentions that numerous animal studies have clearly shown that RF fields cause developmental effects at exposure levels that are sufficiently high to cause significant increase in core maternal temperature (greater than 1 degree Celsius). However the SCENIHR review mentions that there were no adverse effects on development from RF fields at non-thermal exposure levels, even with the inclusion of more recent human and animal data. The SCENIHR review concluded that the weight of the evidence is strong against an effect on development at low level RF, such as when using a mobile phone. The results reported by Birks et al need further investigation.
