Pregnant women who use their cell phones with a medium and high frequency put the development of their babies at risk, according to a study published on the Internet portal Vanguardia and which has been taken up by various media in order to raise awareness about the damage caused by cell phone use.
According to the same source, more than 85 thousand women from five countries (Spain, Denmark, Korea, the Netherlands and Norway) participated in the study that was carried out by the Barcelona Institute of Global Health, and which has verified that pregnant women who using mobile phones are more likely to have a child with behavior problems, especially with hyperactivity and inattention.
The study, which is part of the European project Gerónimo, has been carried out based on the analysis of the behavior of pregnant mothers and their children aged between 5 and 7 years.
And it is that most mothers use the cell phone daily and it is common to keep it in the pants bags, the jacket or even inside the bra, without knowing that this could harm the baby.
As reported, 39 percent of the women recruited for the study did not use their cell phones during pregnancy (they were recruited during 1996 and 2002); the other group of women, who constituted 29 percent of them, used their cell phones sparingly; 27 percent used it on average, and 5.7 percent used it very frequently.
Laura Birks, ISGlobal researcher and study author, noted that the results show “consistent evidence of the risk of hyperactivity problems and inattention due to medium and high use of mobile phones by women during pregnancy.”
As a final result, the children of the women who used the cell phone more frequently, 6.6 percent had behavioral problems, 8.3 percent showed symptoms of hyperactivity and trouble concentrating, while 12 percent had emotional problems.
Although the damage that can be caused by the use of a cell phone to a baby in the womb is not yet known with certainty since no one would be able to expose it to the cell phone to know the effects, it is known that it is bad for emotional and mental formation For small children, it is therefore important that pregnant women improve their habits when using this device.