Pregnant Cell Phone Gabbers Have Kids Who Misbehave

It's bad enough if pregnant mom uses phone, worse if child does

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 7, 2010 9:28 AM CST

Copied

Cell Phones Linked to Misbehaving Kids — Cell phone use while pregnant may lead to an increased risk of a child with behavioral problems--and it's worse if the child ends up using a cell phone too. (Shutter Stock)

You probably already knew that cell phones might cause cancer—but did you know they also might cause your unborn child to act up? New research shows that women who used cell phones regularly while pregnant were 40% more likely to have children with behavioral problems, Reuters reports. The probability rose to 50% if the children, once born, also used cell phones.

Researchers looked at 28,000 7-year-olds from a separate Danish study tracking 100,000 pregnant women. The lead researcher tried to account for other possible differences between the women, including social status, sex of the child, breastfeeding, and the mother's own history, age, and stress. "One thought was that it was it not cell phone use but mothers' inattention that led to behavior problems," she says. "While it was important, it didn't explain the association that we found." Click for another reason you might not want to let your kids use cell phones.
(More cell phones stories.)

Report an error