Cell phone use and exposure to weak radio frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF-RF) has been a public health concern for several years. Specific concerns on whether using your cell phone while pregnant can harm your fetus are mainly due to their extensive use.

Despite the widespread uncertainty among the public that EMF-RFs from cell phones might harm the developing brain of the fetus, the evidence from animal experiments and from previous epidemiological studies with mothers and children are inconsistent.

To find answers, we studied the association between maternal cell phone use during pregnancy and child’s neurodevelopment at 3 and 5 years. We included around 45,000 mothers and their children from all over Norway who are participants of a large birth cohort study, the Norwegian Mother and Child Study (MoBa study）。这是全世界最大的研究，跟随怀孕的家庭。

父母回答的问卷评估了孩子的神经发育。这些经常是流行病学研究中的问卷，还有一个问题：“当您要求孩子指向他/她的眼睛，鼻子，头发等时，他/她是否正确指向身体的至少七个部分？”和“您的孩子可以用双手抓一个大球吗？”。此外，我们使用语言发展作为结果，因为在先前的研究中，我们发现该参数对暴露于神经毒性剂敏感。

我们没有发现母亲在怀孕期间使用手机对孩子的神经发育时使用手机有害影响的证据

我们没有发现母亲在怀孕期间使用手机对孩子的神经发育时使用手机有害影响的证据。Further to this, we even found that the more the mother was using her cell phone during pregnancy the better language and motor skills her child had at 3 years of age. We observed no associations when the child was 5 years old.

然而，在另一项研究中其中包括包括MOBA在内的五个出生队列的母亲和儿童，作者发现怀孕期间的手机使用与儿童在5年时出现多动症/注意力不集中问题的风险更高。

个性，育儿风格和其他因素

Still, high cell phone use for the Norwegian women was related to a lower risk of emotional problems at 5 years. As in our study, the interpretation of such results is unclear. Mainly due to the small RF-EMF exposure that reached the fetus when the mother is using the phone while pregnant and due to other unmeasured factors that can “mask” the findings, such as maternal depression or anxiety, parenting style and maternal personality.

我们假设性格外向的妇女会说更多（使用手机更多），这可以帮助他们的孩子提高沟通能力。“国际个性项目池”问卷评估了母亲的性格外向性。即使考虑到产妇的外向，怀孕的手机也没有发现对孩子的神经发育有害。

似乎有利于儿童语言和运动技能发展的社会和家庭背景可能会引起观察到的效果。

A changing world

关于EMF-RF暴露于人类健康的影响仍然存在很大的知识差距。到我们的研究进行手机使用时，已广泛使用。在招聘期（2001 - 2009年）中，手机使用从68％增加到99％。

自2009年以来，手机技术发生了巨大变化，这是智能手机使用的主要里程碑。智能手机和其他智能设备已经完全改变了我们使用手机的方式，包括使用频率，使用类型和使用年龄。

Even though we cannot be absolutely sure if we could observe the same results if the study was conducted now and had included the widespread use of smart phones, the physical exposure to EMF-RF has not changed that much and we believe that our results also have validity for the present situation.