Researchers have found evidence that when pregnant women use cell phones regularly, their children are more likely to have behavioral problems.

Researchers have found evidence that when pregnant women use cell phones regularly, their children are more likely to have behavioral problems.

The scientists examined data from 28,000 7-year-old children and their mothers. Children whose mothers used cell phones while pregnant were 40 percent more likely to have behavioral problems. If the children themselves used cell phones, this rose to a 50 percent likelihood.

Reuters reports:

{jb_info}[The researchers] tried to account for other possible causes, such as whether women who used cell phones were different from women who did not, especially during the time of their pregnancies when cellphone use was less common than it is now.{/jb_info}

A separate study also found that a mom’s behaviors during pregnancy can greatly influence the future health of her child, Specifically, what you eat during pregnancy affects your child’s food preferences, because it helps to form their sense of smell, according to the new study.

It turns out that a pregnant mother’s diet shapes her child’s brain development, sensitizing her fetus to those particular smells and flavors.

According to the Hindustan Times:

{jb_info}This makes the mother’s diet more attractive to the child when they are older … Researchers studying mice found that the pups’ sense of smell was changed by what their mothers ate, teaching them to like the flavors in her diet.

At the same time, they found significant changes in the structure of the brain’s olfactory glomeruli, which processes smells, because odors in the amniotic fluid affect how this system develops.{/jb_info}

Sources:

Reuters December 6, 2010

Paging Dr. Gupta December 7, 2010

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health December 7, 2010

The Hindustan Times December 3, 2010

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences December 1, 2010