Maternal cell phone and cordless phone use during pregnancy and behaviour problems in 5-year-old children

Background A previous study found an association between maternal cell phone use during pregnancy and maternal-reported child behaviour problems at age 7. Together with cell phones, cordless phones represent the main exposure source of radiofrequency-electromagnetic fields to the head. Therefore, we assessed the association between maternal cell phone and cordless phone use during pregnancy and teacher-reported and maternal-reported child behaviour problems at age 5. Methods The study was embedded in the Amsterdam Born Children and their Development study, a population-based birth cohort study in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2003–2004). Teachers and mothers reported child behaviour problems using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire at age 5. Maternal cell phone and cordless phone use during pregnancy was asked when children were 7 years old. Results A total of 2618 children were included. As compared to non-users, those exposed to prenatal cell phone use showed an increased but non-significant association of having teacher-reported overall behaviour problems, although without dose-response relationship with the number of calls (OR=2.12 (95% CI 0.95 to 4.74) for