Smartphone addicted and a mom-to-be? You might want to think twice about how often you reach for your cell. A study by the Yale School of Medicine was released this week that indicates exposure to radiation from mobile phones in utero can affect brain development in little ones, causing behavioral issues like ADHD in their adult life.
For the study, pregnant mice were placed in a cage with a mobile phone on a muted active call. Compared to the control group, which was in a cage with a deactivated phone, the fetuses born to the exposed group displayed more tendencies toward hyperactivity and reduced memory capacity. {Just a note: ADHD is not categorized as a neurological disease, but imaging of the prefrontal cortex in patients with the disorder show slow development in the area.} This is the first study that has looked at the issue of radiation from phones and fetal development, however researchers do believe more testing is needed to determine safe limits of cell phone use for pregnant women.
While inconclusive, this study brings up the important fact that we need to think about what our everyday dependencies {like iPhones and soy lattes} might be doing not only to our unborn children’s health, but even to our own!
~Ashley Taylor
{Thanks to discovery.com and yale.edu.}
