A friend sent me an interesting article today and I thought I’d pass it on to you so you could weigh in on it.
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.
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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.
See the whole article here. They also included studies with pregnant rats where increased exposure to similar radiation ended with the same structural changes in the offsprings’ brains.
How much should we worry about cell phones? I honestly don’t even know how they work. Radiation? Really? Maybe I should start using a headset. I mean, we don’t even have a landline, so the cell phone is our only option. Which is scary. Unless it’s the neglect causing the “structural changes”. In which case, I don’t think the 450 minutes a month we spend on the phone will have long term effects on our children.
Should I also stop using the microwave? Or is it the Hot Pockets people put IN the microwave that’s destoying the children?
Next they’re going to tell me the Internet is responsible for the problems of the next generation. And unfortunately, I won’t be able to refute that one. Not one bit.
I just read something about cell phones like that too. I can’t find the article again (maybe it was Dr. Mercola?) but it also suggested it was all things wireless. Some sort of radiation or something.
It’s just – how in the world do we give up such convenience items! Ahh! It’s always something new.
scary! maybe that’s why miller is so intense…
I read the same Mercola article suggesting that we should also eliminate wireless internet, living near cell phone towers, and cordless phones (save the old 900 Hz variety)
Personally, I’m glad. It gives me an excuse to not have to carry the stupid thing everywhere. I hate my cell phone. Lucky enough, I live where the local phone service is included in rent.
But I’m struggling with the wireless internet one. We have one internet jack. In an awkward spot. And three computers.
First, I would wonder who did the “authoritative research.” I’m always suspicious of articles that don’t name their sources. Second, I have a severely hyperactive and attention deficit brother who was born before cell phones. My mother is attention deficit. My grandpa (her father) was hyperactive. I doubt these things have anything to do with cell phones or wireless internet and far more likely to be about genes.
Finally, I can understand that mothers who can’t seem to put their cell phones down would have a tendancy to ignore their children. However, I make three to four calls a day on my cell, but these calls last no more than a few minutes at most. And if my son needs me during a call? I excuse myself and hang up. In short, I’m pretty sceptical.
I have a very easy tendency to ignore such “research”. As much as I want to stay away from all things that can cause harm and cancer and stuff, that would pretty much mean eliminating all forms of electricity, phones, cars, gas, radiation, foods you buy in the stores and living on a farm raising your own meat, veggies and fruit. Even that wont help, I mean the sun causes cancer right? but yet, so does sunscreen…. so…. Pick and choose the lesser of two evils.
Um, anything from mercola.com isn’t really in the category of serious research..
Well… cell phones work like most other transmitter/receivers (transceivers). Most phones work on two to four different frequencies depending on your carrier, brand of phone, and typical usage (i.e. calling from the EU requires the use of a diff. frequency than what the US based cell system uses).
In a nutshell, your phone generates a high frequency wavelength and shoots it out to the nearest tower which relays it to wherever it’s supposed to go and the opposite is true when you’re receiving a call.
Most US based phones operate on either the Cell band (800 MHz) or the PCS band (1080 MHz). Technically, they operate within the microwave frequency range which is anywhere from 300 Mhz to 300 GHz.
I could see how some people think that cell phones could lead to long-term health concerns but we’re bombarded by much higher frequencies everyday.
In fact, I could respond to Jes’ post about avoiding all things “cancer causing” and point out that analog and digital broadcasts (Radio, TV, CB, Ham, etc) at high frequencies are passing through her body as we speak. You just can’t get around it. Most of these aren’t in the high end of the UHF band so I don’t think there’s a tremendous amount of ill effect but it probably contributes to our overall health.
To sum up, I’m rather wary of this finding and opt to look at other factors that could contribute to childhood behavioral problems. Well… um… that was quite a long rant.
And while we’re at it, we should ban Dihydrogen Monoxide. This world is just getting too unsafe.
If I can’t eliminate, I’m a fan of reducing 🙂
I have seen the wireless/radio waves/microwaves/cell phone thing crop up many times over the years, and the research seems to flip back and forth between “CAUSES CANCER!” and “May contribute overall, but not really enough to worry about”. So, I dunno.
It’s one of those things you can’t really get away from, either, as other posters have pointed out, even if you don’t own any. We’re constantly bombarded with such things. I think it’s best to reduce and eliminate, but what you can’t control, you can’t control. I think that’s where godly wisdom and faith comes in 🙂
The research IS legitimate. See here.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/warning-using-a-mobile-phone-while-pregnant-can-seriously-damage-your-baby-830352.html
“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.”
I have to confess, whenever I read studies like this (and I have to admit my bias, I wouldn’t cross the street for an “research” from Mercola! Amoung other things, he was sanctioned by the US FDA for improper claims about drugs – essentially he lied about some of his supplements and how effective they were)
I am reminded of one of my economics professor, who used statistics to conclusively prove to us that ice cream causes murder.
Ice cream and murder have a confounding variable – consumption rates and murder rates both increase when the weather is warm.
I think there’s probably a confounding variable. Something about a parenting style, or just that mother’s who have a cell phone are also more likely to get help for their kids, or they are more likely to be busy, so kids have less time to adjust to new situations and so they act out more, or . . . .
I don’t think I’d live next to high tension power lines.