Ringing cellphones of moms-to-be may startle foetus and disrupt its sleep

WASHINGTON: Moms-to-be, take note. The sounds and vibrations emitted by cellphones carried by pregnant women may rattle the sleep-and-wake cycles of their foetuses, a new study has found.

The study tracked foetal reactions to repetitive cellphone and beeper use among more than two dozen resident physicians while they were pregnant.

“We wanted to see what these devices can do to the foetus,” said study co-author Dr Boris Petrikovsky, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in the US.

“What we figured out is that if you’re a baby in the womb and someone wakes you up every hour, you will not be a happy camper. The sound, and perhaps even vibrations, cause a lot of ‘startle reflex’, which disturbs the normal sleep cycle,” he said.

Previous research has sug- gested that pregnant resident physicians tend to have a higherthan-average rate of pregnancy complications, including premature birth, excessively high blood pressure and low birth weight.

Because of the nature of their duties, such medical residents often carry phones close to their body, over very thin medical scrubs, for long periods of time.

“We can’t say that this is definitely causing the higher pregnancy risk that has been seen,” Petrikovsky said. “But we can say for sure that cycles of normal foetal behaviour are definitely disturbed or interrupted by the frequent use of cellphones and beepers,” he said.

Reaserchers did find that overtime the foetuses essentially get used to the sounds but concluded that repeated exposure to the sounds may get in the way of normal foetal behaviour. PTI