Waves of anxiety
March 25, 2010 11:59 AM Subscribe
Are there potential risks from using my iPhone and other wireless devices in close proximity to my baby?
While I'm most likely being a neurotic new mother, baby brunette is two months old and is often in the vicinity of wireless devices. Between frequent use of the iPhone while nursing or daily chats on Skype with family, I do my best to hold the phone and computer about a foot away from her body while speaking with people or downloading information. Should I refrain from this completely, or significantly limit usage?
Full disclosure: I know nothing about infrared or wireless technology so if this is scientifically ridiculous, please be kind in your responses. I want to do what is in the best interest of my child's developing brain and body, and was curious what the hive mind thought about the issue (if it even is one!). Thanks to all in advance.
While I'm most likely being a neurotic new mother, baby brunette is two months old and is often in the vicinity of wireless devices. Between frequent use of the iPhone while nursing or daily chats on Skype with family, I do my best to hold the phone and computer about a foot away from her body while speaking with people or downloading information. Should I refrain from this completely, or significantly limit usage?
Full disclosure: I know nothing about infrared or wireless technology so if this is scientifically ridiculous, please be kind in your responses. I want to do what is in the best interest of my child's developing brain and body, and was curious what the hive mind thought about the issue (if it even is one!). Thanks to all in advance.
No.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 12:07 PM on March 25, 2010
posted by Threeway Handshake at 12:07 PM on March 25, 2010
You might drop the baby if you're talking on the phone. Or you might drop the phone on the baby.
posted by GuyZero at 12:07 PM on March 25, 2010 [15 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 12:07 PM on March 25, 2010 [15 favorites]
Infrared is an electromagnetic wave of slightly longer wavelength (lower energy) than visible light. Warm objects (like you, and your baby) radiate infrared light, which is why you can take pictures with it. If it were harmful, we'd all be dead.
I don't have an iPhone, but I assume it uses radio waves, not infrared. Radio waves are a longer wavelength than infrared, and they're going through you all the time whether you like it or not.
I recall that some people used to worry about magnetic fields from cell phones next to one's head causing cancer. I don't know about the effects of those, but I suspect the people who worry about such things are paranoid. Also, many types of electrical devices produce magnetic fields, but the fields have a very short range.
posted by k. at 12:09 PM on March 25, 2010
I don't have an iPhone, but I assume it uses radio waves, not infrared. Radio waves are a longer wavelength than infrared, and they're going through you all the time whether you like it or not.
I recall that some people used to worry about magnetic fields from cell phones next to one's head causing cancer. I don't know about the effects of those, but I suspect the people who worry about such things are paranoid. Also, many types of electrical devices produce magnetic fields, but the fields have a very short range.
posted by k. at 12:09 PM on March 25, 2010
In anything scary and worthy of study, a few of the studies will be wrong. Those wrong-but-scary studies will be reported on by the media, while the right-but-boring ones will be ignored. When the wrong-but-scary ones are refuted, that refutation won't be reported.
The few studies that have shown some tiny negative effects of microwave radiation are offset by a much larger body of evidence showing that it doesn't.
*IF* it has a risk, it's probably small compared to, I dunno, eating a cheeseburger and a coke or by one trip in the car.
posted by paanta at 12:14 PM on March 25, 2010
The few studies that have shown some tiny negative effects of microwave radiation are offset by a much larger body of evidence showing that it doesn't.
*IF* it has a risk, it's probably small compared to, I dunno, eating a cheeseburger and a coke or by one trip in the car.
posted by paanta at 12:14 PM on March 25, 2010
Well, it depends on who you choose to believe. There's this, but then there's also this. How comfortable are you believing that scientists have uncovered everything there is to know about the impact of wireless signals on human physiology? At this point, some people believe cell phone signals are 100% safe, and others are unwilling to say for sure. It really comes down to what you consider to be a reasonable risk, and how bad cell phone signals really could be compared to all the other environmental toxins out there.
posted by Go Banana at 12:15 PM on March 25, 2010
posted by Go Banana at 12:15 PM on March 25, 2010
Best answer: Short of going to the source and reading science-based medical papers on the subject in reputable journals (and avoiding meta-analysis papers), the best quick summary is probably here. In short:
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:28 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
- The radiative energy emitted by cellphones, WiFi, baby monitors and the like is very weak (~10 milliamps).
- You (and mini-bruentte) receive greater EMF effects from radio, television, and the wiring in your house than any of the devices above.
- All known cancer-causing agents work by breaking chemical bonds. The radiative energy required to do this is very high, well into the ultraviolet range. Microwaves do not get anywhere near this strength. (Quoting from the linked article: "The photon energy of cellphone EMF is more than 10 million times weaker than the lowest energy ionizing radiation... required to break chemical bonds.")
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:28 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
From Wikipedia: There are publications which support the existence of complex biological effects of weaker non-thermal electromagnetic fields, including weak ELF magnetic fields and modulated RF and microwave fields. Fundamental mechanisms of the interaction between biological material and electromagnetic fields at non-thermal levels are not fully understood.
And neural tissue is apparently one of the ones most prone to being affected by EM fields. So in purely mechanistic terms, it doesn't seem to be beyond the bounds of possibility that exposure to EM devices might have some effect, however subtle, on a developing baby. The lack of smoking-gun research on the subject in no way proves that such devices are 100% without effect; it only suggests that they don't cause the specific types of serious harm we've looked for.
Think about it: if it were the case, say, that every ten thousand hours of exposure to a magnetic field of such-and-such a strength resulted in a decrease of 1 IQ point in humans, then how would you go about testing that? You can't follow a group of children from birth to death, painstakingly measuring their distance from each and every electronic device 24/7. Even if you did, how would you control for the other millions of variables that could affect mental development? Now, what if the effects were on something less measurable than IQ, like certain sorts of behavior, or an alteration in gene silencing in particular tissues? Or what if EM radiation had effects only during a certain window of prenatal or postnatal development? You'd never ever be able to find such a phenomenon using our current, relatively blunt research tools-- not unless you understood the mechanisms well enough to know what you were looking for beforehand, and it appears that at present we simply don't.
Sorry for the extended discussion; I just feel as though it's important to have a healthy respect for the limits of our knowledge of biological processes, as well as a clear understanding of what a negative result means (and doesn't mean) in science. On the other hand, everyone here is correct that ginormous effects (like +50% Cancer, or Baby Grows Up With No Basketball Abilities) would probably have been noticed by now, so chances are your daughter's perfectly fine chowing down on that Iphone. If we never wanted to expose our children to anything that hadn't been conclusively proven 100% safe, then we'd never let them leave the womb.
posted by Bardolph at 12:46 PM on March 25, 2010
And neural tissue is apparently one of the ones most prone to being affected by EM fields. So in purely mechanistic terms, it doesn't seem to be beyond the bounds of possibility that exposure to EM devices might have some effect, however subtle, on a developing baby. The lack of smoking-gun research on the subject in no way proves that such devices are 100% without effect; it only suggests that they don't cause the specific types of serious harm we've looked for.
Think about it: if it were the case, say, that every ten thousand hours of exposure to a magnetic field of such-and-such a strength resulted in a decrease of 1 IQ point in humans, then how would you go about testing that? You can't follow a group of children from birth to death, painstakingly measuring their distance from each and every electronic device 24/7. Even if you did, how would you control for the other millions of variables that could affect mental development? Now, what if the effects were on something less measurable than IQ, like certain sorts of behavior, or an alteration in gene silencing in particular tissues? Or what if EM radiation had effects only during a certain window of prenatal or postnatal development? You'd never ever be able to find such a phenomenon using our current, relatively blunt research tools-- not unless you understood the mechanisms well enough to know what you were looking for beforehand, and it appears that at present we simply don't.
Sorry for the extended discussion; I just feel as though it's important to have a healthy respect for the limits of our knowledge of biological processes, as well as a clear understanding of what a negative result means (and doesn't mean) in science. On the other hand, everyone here is correct that ginormous effects (like +50% Cancer, or Baby Grows Up With No Basketball Abilities) would probably have been noticed by now, so chances are your daughter's perfectly fine chowing down on that Iphone. If we never wanted to expose our children to anything that hadn't been conclusively proven 100% safe, then we'd never let them leave the womb.
posted by Bardolph at 12:46 PM on March 25, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aramaic at 12:05 PM on March 25, 2010 [1 favorite]