Pregnant women who use mobile phones are unlikely to cause any adverse effects to their child's brain development, according to new research.
The research, published in the journal BMC Public Health, shows phone use does not have any impact on a child's language, communication and motor skills in later life.
Scientists say the research provides further evidence that exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields associated with the use of mobile phones during pregnancy is not linked to neurodevelopment in children.
Study lead author Dr Eleni Papadopoulou, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said: "The concern for harm to the foetus caused by radio frequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by mobile phones, is mainly driven by reports from experimental animal studies with inconsistent results.
"Even though this is an observational study, our findings do not support the hypothesis of adverse effects on child's language, communication and motor skills due to the use of mobile phone during pregnancy."
The research team analysed data from a large Norwegian group of pregnant women. It includes data collected from mothers and children during and after pregnancy.
A total of 45,389 mother-child pairs completed self-reported questionnaire which included data on maternal mobile phone use and neurodevelopment follow ups of the children at ages three and five.
Study senior author Professor Jan Alexander, said: "Our investigation revealed for the first time that maternal mobile phone use may actually have a positive impact.
"More specifically, mobile phone use in pregnancy was associated with lower risk of the child having low language and motor skills at three years of age.
"Although we adjusted for important socio-demographic characteristics as well as maternal personality and psychological factors, we think this protective effect is more likely to be explained by factors not measured in this study having an impact on the mobile phone use and child's neurodevelopment, rather than the maternal mobile phone use in itself."
The researchers found that children born to mobile phone users had a 27 per cent lower risk of having lower sentence complexity and a 14 per cent lower risk of incomplete grammar.
They also found they had a 31 per cent lower risk of having moderate language delay at age three , compared to children of mothers who reported no mobile phone use.
Children born to mobile phone users also had an 18 per cent lower risk of low motor skills at age three, compared to children born to non-users of mobile phones.
The beneficial effects remained even after adjusting for relevant confounders and were also relative to the level of reported mobile phone use by the mother.
Prof Alexander added: "Our large study provides evidence that pregnant women's use of cell phone is not associated with risk of harming neurodevelopment of the foetus.
"The beneficial effects we report should be interpreted with caution due to the limitations common in observational studies, but our findings should at least alleviate any concern mothers have about using their mobile phone while pregnant."
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