Are Cell Phones Safe During Pregnancy?

Radios, cell phones, microwaves, TVs, and remote controls emit invisible energy. So do your electrical outlets. So far, evidence of harm from cell phones is slight.

You may have heard rumors about the safety of cell phones and worried about using yours if you’re pregnant. There’s a simple solution: Use headphones during calls or when you listen to media.  

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Don’t Be Fooled by These Pregnancy Myths

Your radio, cell phone, microwave, television, and remote control all emit invisible energy. In fact, a panel of the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the waves that common household electronics emit “electro-smog.” Even the electrical outlets in your home create mini electrical fields. (The WHO has a helpful explanation of the different forms of energy here.)

We’ve had radios for a century, with no known effects. The amount of energy coming from household electronics is extremely low. Safety standards limit cell phones to emit, at most, 10 watts per square meter. The average microwave oven leaks about 50 watts. The sun at noon, by comparison, pours 1,370 watts per square meter of energy on you. 

High-energy radiation — for example, from x-rays — heats your body and does harm you. Doctors advise everyone to limit x-ray exposure throughout their lifetime. The same form of radiation in an x-ray is used to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy is difficult to undergo because it kills healthy cells right along with cancer.

“We know that it has an effect at high intensities, right?” says Leeka Kheifets, PhD, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Los Angeles. “The question is whether it has any effect at low intensities.”

If it does, scientists do not know the mechanism, and any evidence of harm is slight so far.

Some people living near cell phone towers have reported trouble sleeping. A study with about 24,000 Swedish and Finnish volunteers, however, found no connection between cell phone use and sleep quality.

There has been a trickle of controversial studies linking cell phones to brain tumors, but studies of hundreds of thousands of people, in Denmark and Australia, have found no increase in brain tumors over decades.  

It’s safe to chat on your cell while you’re pregnant. A study of more than 55,500 women and child pairs from several countries concluded that women who used cell phones more often were slightly more likely to have a preterm baby — but the research couldn’t nail down whether phones caused the problem. It’s possible those mothers were under more stress.

The same issue arose when researchers studied whether prenatal cell phone exposure affected a child’s behavior. Kheifets joined a team of researchers that drew upon data from nearly 84,000 child-mother pairs. Nearly 40 percent of the mothers, mostly Danish, said they stayed away from cell phones during their pregnancy. They were less likely to have a child with behavioral, hyperactivity-inattention, or emotional problems.

The study also found that the more often a future Mom used her cell phone, the more likely the child would have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The researchers cautioned, however, that there might be other reasons, such as a stress.

Kheifets says she’s not trying to alarm mothers. But it’s easy to avoid that tiny risk, if it exists. If you’re the cautious type, use a headset rather than holding a phone to your ear, and keep the phone away from your belly.

Perhaps most importantly, for adults and children, since we tend to spend way too much time using our phones: Limit phone time, period.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Depression, Anxiety During Pregnancy Are Underreported