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Reproductive Health

Prenatal cell phone use and developmental milestone delays among infants

No Effects Found

Divan HA, Kheifets L, Olsen J · 2011

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Large Danish study found no developmental delays in babies whose mothers used basic cell phones during pregnancy in the 1990s-2000s.

Plain English Summary

Summary written for general audiences

Danish researchers followed over 41,000 children from birth to 18 months to see if mothers' cell phone use during pregnancy affected their babies' developmental milestones. They found no connection between prenatal cell phone exposure and delays in cognitive, language, or motor development at either 6 or 18 months of age. This large-scale study suggests that cell phone use during pregnancy doesn't appear to harm early childhood development.

Study Details

The aim of this study was to examine if prenatal use of cell phones by pregnant mothers is associated with developmental milestones delays among offspring up to 18 months of age.

Our work is based upon the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC), which recruited pregnant mothers fro...

A logistic regression model estimated the odds ratios (OR) for developmental milestone delays, adjus...

No evidence of an association between prenatal cell phone use and motor or cognitive/language developmental delays among infants at 6 and 18 months of age was observed. Even when considering dose-response associations for cell phone, associations were null

Cite This Study
Divan HA, Kheifets L, Olsen J (2011). Prenatal cell phone use and developmental milestone delays among infants Scand J Work Environ Health. 37(4):341-348, 2011.
Show BibTeX
@article{ha_2011_prenatal_cell_phone_use_2748,
  author = {Divan HA and Kheifets L and Olsen J},
  title = {Prenatal cell phone use and developmental milestone delays among infants},
  year = {2011},
  
  url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/23064863?seq=1},
}

Quick Questions About This Study

A 2011 Danish study tracking over 41,000 children found no connection between mothers' cell phone use during pregnancy and developmental delays. Babies showed normal cognitive, language, and motor development at 6 and 18 months regardless of prenatal phone exposure levels.
Research following 41,000 Danish children from birth to 18 months found maternal cell phone use during pregnancy did not harm infant development. Less than 5% of children showed any developmental delays, with no difference between exposed and unexposed groups.
No, according to a large-scale Danish study. Researchers found no increased risk of cognitive or language delays at 6 or 18 months among babies whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy, with odds ratios showing no significant associations.
A 2011 study of over 41,000 Danish infants found no evidence that prenatal cell phone exposure affects motor development. Babies reached normal motor milestones at 6 and 18 months regardless of their mothers' phone use during pregnancy.
Less than 5% of children in a Danish study of 41,000 infants showed developmental delays at 6 and 18 months, with no difference between mothers who used cell phones during pregnancy and those who didn't use phones regularly.