Maternal Attitude Towards Cell Phone Use During Pregnancy; A Potential Harm to the Fetus

Abstract

Background: Despite the lack of conclusive and proven supporting epidemiologic data about the association between cell phone radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) and the developing fetus complications, there are frequent discussions about this matter. Methods: A medical student interviewed eligible pregnant women admitted to Al Zahra Hospital, an academic referral hospital in the North of Iran, to fill questionnaires intended to assess maternal demographic data and their attitude towards cell phone use during pregnancy in 2020. Results: A total of 322 pregnant women with the mean age of 30.12 ± 6.81 years enrolled in the survey, in which 3.1% of them were non-cell phone users, and 6.052% of all did not use a cell phone during the first trimester. Also, 38.81% of them mentioned healthcare providers as the main source of obtaining information, while 40.6% did receive any information. The mean years of cell phone use and the daily hours were 8.26 ± 4.1 and 2.66 ± 2.02, respectively. Also, 64.3% believed that cell phone use poses risks to the fetus, while 26.7% had no idea. A positive association was also found concerning maternal awareness from cell phones harmfulness to the fetus and maternal education, residency, and employment (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: In this study, the majority of pregnant women believed that cell phone use during pregnancy could be harmful to the fetus; however, most of them were cell phone users with no special consideration even during the first trimester. It seems that the importance of the issue must be revealed to them by more healthcare providers’ interventions.