Hairdryers 'can increase risk of miscarriage'
by TAHIRA YAQOOB, Daily Mail
Pregnant women increase their risk of miscarriage by using hairdryers and other electrical appliances, scientists claim.
A study of mothers-to-be suggests electro-magnetic fields around common household appliances could double the chances of losing a baby.
Travelling on trains or trams could have similar effects.
U.S. researchers asked more than 1,000 women in their first ten weeks of pregnancy to spend a day wearing meters around their waists measuring the magnetic fields.
They claim to have found that women exposed to levels of at least 1.6 microteslas - the unit for measuring electromagnetic fields, or EMF - were nearly twice as likely to miscarry.
EMFs are thought to subtly disrupt cell-to-cell communication, which can lead to a miscarriage.
Standing 30cm away from a vacuum cleaner or electric drill will expose a person to between two and 20 microteslas. Food mixers produce between 0.6 and 10, dishwashers 0.6 to three and washing machines 0.15 to three.
A total of 662 women from the 1,063 who took part in the tests in San Francisco were found to be in the high-risk category.
Researcher De-Kun Li, who pioneered the project at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in Oakland, California, told today's New Scientist magazine: 'That is another confirmation that the effect is due to EMF. People have never looked at peak EMFs before.
'My study opens a new chapter for these EMF effects, not just for miscarriages but for other health effects as well.'
Mr Li's team now plans to analyse data from the meters, which recorded EMF levels every ten seconds, to discover which appliances posed the greatest risk.
Research has shown electric shavers, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners and trains can produce strong fields with high exposure the closer they are.
Fellow scientists at the California department of health services in Oakland reanalysed tests carried out on pregnant women 11 years ago in the wake of Mr Li's findings.
They claim to have found women exposed to peak EMF levels of more than 1.4 microteslas were nearly twice as likely to miscarry. Previous studies on the effect of lowfrequency EMFs on pregnant women have been inconclusive but Mr Li thinks that is because average exposure levels rather than peak values were examined.
The peak values set by Mr Li are well below the recommended exposure limit of 1,600 microteslas, although some scientists were unconvinced by his findings.
U. S. scientist Michael Bracken, of Yale University, dismissed the theory.
He said: 'There are numerous ways of measuring these fields and one worries if you do it enough times then you are going to find positive associations. There is a real risk in these things getting overinterpreted and scaring the dickens out of people.'
Reposted by JoDa Hodge
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