If you need another reason to get off your cellphone, here it is: in a study of 13,000 Danish children published in the July issue of Epidemiology, researchers found that pregnant women who used their cellphone handsets regularly were 54 percent more likely to have kids with behavioural problems. The more frequent the use, the higher the likelihood. And if kids under seven years of age used the phones themselves, they were 80 percent more likely to suffer from behavioural issues. They were also 25 percent more likely to have emotional problems, 35 percent more likely to be hyperactive and 34 percent more likely to have trouble relating to other children.
Though the researchers, from the University of California in Los Angeles and Aarhus, Denmark, did control for a number of variables (socio-economic status, smoking during pregnancy, family history), they advise more studies are needed to fully understand the connection. It’s possible that mothers who frequently use cellphones pay less attention to their children, for example, thus leading to behavioural issues.
Photo by Carlo Mendoza
