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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/116228
Maternal cell phone use in early pregnancy and child's language, communication and motor skills at 3 and 5 years: the Norwegian mother and child cohort study (MoBa)
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cell phone use during pregnancy is a public health
concern. We investigated the association between maternal cell
phone use in pregnancy and child's language, communication and
motor skills at 3 and 5 years. METHODS: This prospective study
includes 45,389 mother-child pairs, participants of the MoBa,
recruited at mid-pregnancy from 1999 to 2008. Maternal frequency
of cell phone use in early pregnancy and child language,
communication and motor skills at 3 and 5 years, were assessed
by questionnaires. Logistic regression was used to estimate the
associations. RESULTS: No cell phone use in early pregnancy was
reported by 9.8% of women, while 39%, 46.9% and 4.3% of the
women were categorized as low, medium and high cell phone users.
Children of cell phone user mothers had 17% (OR = 0.83, 95% CI:
0.77, 0.89) lower adjusted risk of having low sentence
complexity at 3 years, compared to children of non-users. The
risk was 13%, 22% and 29% lower by low, medium and high maternal
cell phone use. Additionally, children of cell phone users had
lower risk of low motor skills score at 3 years, compared to
children of non-users, but this association was not found at 5
years. We found no association between maternal cell phone use
and low communication skills. CONCLUSIONS: We reported a
decreased risk of low language and motor skills at three years
in relation to prenatal cell phone use, which might be explained
by enhanced maternal-child interaction among cell phone users.
No evidence of adverse neurodevelopmental effects of prenatal
cell phone use was reported.
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PAPADOPOULOU, Eleni, et al. Maternal cell phone use in early pregnancy and child's language, communication and motor skills at 3 and 5 years: the Norwegian mother and child cohort study (MoBa). BMC Public Health. 2017. Vol. 17, num. 1, pags. 685. ISSN 1471-2458. [consulted: 13 of June of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/116228