Between this study and the "stress causes allergies" study that was in the news this weekend, our kid is screwed. Although to be truthful, I don't actually talk on the phone--just use the blackberry constantly. And actually it's because the blackberry phone sucks that I don't use it as a phone. So I'll pretend it's different.

And then there's this quote from the article: "They add that there might be other possible explanations that they did not examine – such as that mothers who used the phones frequently might pay less attention to their children."

But seriously, I am so tired of all these damn studies. They seem to be inclined to do promote the notion that if your kid has a problem, it's the mother's (not father's) fault.

This is a sexist study. What about measuring the amount of time men spend on cell phones while their wives/SOs are pregnant as a determinitve factor concerning their children's behavioral problems?

I'd agree that this study probably mistakes correlation for causation. Parents who spend a significant amount of time on the phone might be neglecting the kids after they're born. I see that a lot on my mass transit commute. I'd be willing to wager that a parent's excessive cellphone use after birth has a more serious effect on the child's behavior than pre-birth use has.

But ZOMG! LO LEVL ELEKTROMAGNIT RADIASHIN!

This is to laugh.

It's just one of those studies where it's so easy to connect the dots that you have to wonder how they funded the study in the first place.

People talking on cell phones --> not correcting their kids. I have that problem at home when i'm on the non-cell phone. If I was on the landline all day, my kids would have "behavioral problems." Is that phrase just a nice way of calling someone an asshole?

I didn't see how the study was designed. If they looked at two randomized groups of women and followed how their babies did later, it's a sound experiment.

If this is a retrospective study, where they looked at women who already had kids, divided the kids up into classes of affected and non-affected, then asked the women whether they used cell phones while pregnant with each, there is always the possibility of confounding effects.