Guest Columnist
Let’s Stop “Pocket Parenting”
By
Mar 2, 2011 - 4:54:48 PM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - This past fall, The New York Times recounted (“Toddlers’ Favorite Toy: The iPhone,” October 17, 2010) the borderline addiction to the iPhone of a three-year-old girl and her younger brother. A new report from the National Institute of Drug Abuse finds that just 50 minutes of cell phone radiation absorbed by healthy adults increases concentrations of the brain’s main fuel—sugar. Many parents understand that young children should not eat lots of sugar, but few appreciate that cell phones might also boost sugar in the brain.

The growing use of cell phones to calm infants and toddlers points to the profound disconnect between public behavior with cell phones and the scientific evidence that these two-way microwave radios have a host of biological impacts on all of us and should not be held close to anyone’s brain, particularly those of children.

Years ago, researchers determined that cell phone radiation could affect opioid receptors in the brain—just like those of heroin and valium. Maybe these young children who throw tantrums when their phones are taken away really are hooked? Children’s skulls are thinner and cell phone radiation gets twice as far into their developing brains than adults, according to studies by the industry.

In fact, all new phones come with warnings about safe distances that few ever see. Officials in Jackson, Wyoming; Portland, Maine; and San Francisco and Burlingame, California, have issued cell phone safety advisories, arguing that people have a right to know about the growing science that shows an array of health problems with long-term use of phones, including reduced sperm count and impaired memory. In France it is against the law to sell or market cell phones to young children.

Babies need parents. They need time to learn how to be frustrated, explore their environments, cry and calm themselves down. Giving children electronic devices to play with may sometimes be a good idea—like on those long car rides marked by cries of “Are we there yet?”—but please disable the wireless connection that allows microwave radiation to course back and forth to the antenna and the phone, and that can send this radiation directly into the small heads and bodies of our children. Yes, cell phones provide a quick fix, but pocket parenting with devices connecting wirelessly may prove to be a very bad and dangerous habit for all of us to kick.

www.ehtrust.org

Devra Lee Davis, PhD, MPH is President of Environmental Health Trust and author of Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What Industry Has Done To Hide It and How to Protect Your Family (Dutton, 2010).

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