Maternal Mobile Phone Use and Children's Neurocognitive Development

Abstract

Objectives: Today, mobile phone use is common and has increased rapidly in many countries. The health effects of exposure to mobile phone use on children are controversial. We described maternal mobile phone use from pregnancy until the 12 months post-birth and examined the association between exposure to mobile phone use and the children's neurocognitive development in the general population in Taipei, Taiwan. Methods: The study was a part of the Taiwan Birth Panel Study. A total of 133 pairs of parents and their singleton child were recruited into this study. We used the Comprehensive Developmental Inventory for Infants and Toddlers (CDIIT) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) to assess child neurocognitive development. We also assessed the intelligence of the mothers using the Standard Progressive Matrices Plus (SPM+). Mothers completed questionnaires to report their mobile phone use. Regression modeling was used to estimate the association between mobile phone exposure and children's neurocognitive development. Results: Most of the mothers answered less than 3 phone calls per day, and the call duration was less than 3 minutes for each phone call from pregnancy until 12 months post-birth. We found no significant association between maternal mobile phone use and neurocognitive development in young children. Conclusions: There is no convincing evidence that maternal mobile phone use has an adverse effect on the neurocognitive development of young children. Prospective research using a personal exposure assessment is needed to elucidate a causal relationship.