Is Using Your Phone Near Your Baby Harmful?

The short version: On radiation, the evidence is reassuring. Phones give off low-energy radio waves, and the US FDA says the weight of scientific evidence has not linked them with health problems. A 2024 review commissioned by the World Health Organization looked at 63 studies and found no link between mobile phone use and brain cancer, even in heavy, long-term users. On attention, the research is more useful: small studies show babies get more upset and play less while a parent is absorbed in a phone. Neither finding is a reason to panic. If you want to be extra careful about radio waves, keep the phone off your baby's body and away from their cot. For attention, a few phone-free moments a day go a long way.

You are lying on the sofa with your baby asleep on your chest, warm and heavy, and your phone is resting on the cushion right next to their head. You are reading something. Then a headline flashes past about phones and radiation, and suddenly you are not sure whether to move the phone, move the baby, or close the article and never think about it again.

We have had that exact moment. Most new parents have, usually at an hour when the internet is at its least helpful. So here is the calm version, with the sources, so you can make your own call.

There are two separate questions inside "is my phone bad for my baby?" One is about radio waves. The other is about your attention. They have different answers, so we will take them one at a time.

Question one: do phone radio waves harm babies?

What phones give off

Phones send and receive radio waves, the same broad kind of energy used by radio, TV and Wi-Fi. This is non-ionising radiation. It does not have enough energy to break chemical bonds the way X-rays or ultraviolet light can. The World Health Organization explains that the main effect of radio waves on the body is a tiny amount of heating, and that at the levels people are exposed to, the temperature rise is negligible. International guidelines set exposure limits well below the point where heating would matter.

What the evidence says

  • The FDA's position. The US Food and Drug Administration says that the weight of scientific evidence has not linked radio waves from cell phones with any health problems. Its review covered children and teenagers too.
  • The WHO's position. The WHO says that to date, no adverse health effect has been causally linked with exposure to wireless technologies, and that no public health consequences are expected while exposure stays below international guidelines.
  • The big 2024 review. The WHO commissioned a systematic review led by Ken Karipidis of ARPANSA, Australia's radiation protection agency. It pulled together 63 studies from 1994 to 2022 and found no increased risk of brain cancer from mobile phone use, including among people who had used phones for ten years or more and those who made the most calls. It was published in Environment International in 2024.

The "possibly carcinogenic" label

You may have seen that phones are "possibly carcinogenic." In 2011, the WHO's cancer agency, IARC, placed radiofrequency fields in Group 2B, possibly carcinogenic to humans. The working group judged the evidence for a link with brain tumours in heavy phone users as "limited," which in IARC's terms means a link was seen but chance, bias or confounding could not be ruled out with reasonable confidence.

That label describes how strong the evidence for a possible hazard looked in 2011. It says nothing about how big any risk would be. Much of the evidence behind it came from studies that asked people with brain tumours to remember their past phone use, and the authors of the 2024 review note that people with a tumour tend to overreport it. The larger and newer body of research that the 2024 review gathered did not find the link.

Are babies different?

This is the reasonable worry. Babies are small and growing, and they cannot tell you anything. The international limits most countries use, from the commission known as ICNIRP, set public exposure 50 times below the level known to cause harmful effects. That wide margin is there to cover differences between people, age included.

Distance also works in your baby's favour. Exposure is highest where the phone touches the body, which is why the UK's health agency points out that holding a phone away from you, as when texting, gives very much lower exposure than a call held to your head. Your baby is further from the phone than your hands are.

If you want to be extra careful

Some health agencies suggest simple precautions while research continues, and they are easy to follow with a baby around. The UK Health Security Agency says that moving the phone away from the body, as when texting, results in very much lower exposure. It also suggests hands-free kits, keeping calls short, making calls where the signal is strong, and discouraging excessive phone use by children.

For a baby, that translates into a few easy habits:

  • Rest the phone on a table or the sofa arm rather than on your baby, and keep it out of the cot or Moses basket.
  • Use speakerphone or earphones for long calls while you hold your baby.
  • If you play white noise from a phone, put it across the room, or switch it to airplane mode once the sound is downloaded.
  • Keep the phone off the baby's pillow area when they sleep. This is good sense for reasons beyond radio waves, since nothing should be in a sleeping space that does not need to be there.

None of these is a sign that anything is dangerous. They are cheap, they cost you almost nothing, and they let you stop thinking about it.

Question two: does your phone use affect your baby's development?

This is the part with more to say, and the research is still young. The studies are small, and most show links rather than proof that phones cause problems.

Babies register the switch. In a 2018 lab study, Sarah Myruski and colleagues observed 50 mothers and babies aged about 7 to 24 months. When mothers stopped playing and turned to their phones, babies became more distressed and explored the room less. Babies whose mothers reported more phone use in daily life also recovered less fully when play started again.

Feeds get quieter. In a Cal Poly study, 25 mothers breastfed in the lab twice, once while using a device and once without. During the device session, mothers talked and engaged less, and some babies were less responsive to their mothers. The authors noted that some parts of the feed changed and others did not.

Interruptions and toddler behaviour. Brandon McDaniel and Jenny Radesky surveyed 170 families with young children. Parents who reported more phone interruptions during time with their child also reported more behaviour problems. The authors were clear that a survey at one point in time cannot show which way the link runs.

What these studies describe is short moments of your attention going elsewhere. That happens to every parent many times a day, with or without a phone: a pan on the stove, a sibling, a doorbell. The developmental psychologist Ed Tronick, who ran the original still-face experiments, has spent much of his career showing that babies and parents drift out of step often, and that the coming back together is what builds trust. Phones make the drifting easier and the drift longer. The fix is to come back.

Our guide to using your phone less around your baby has the practical side: phone-free feeds, a home for the phone, and schedules that do the remembering for you.

So what should you actually do?

If you only take a few things from this:

  1. Let the radio-wave worry go. If it helps your peace of mind, keep the phone off your baby and out of the cot, and use speaker for long calls.
  2. Pick one or two phone-free moments a day. A feed, bath time, or the first minutes after your baby wakes. Put the phone across the room.
  3. Turn off the notifications you do not need. Fewer buzzes, fewer pickups.
  4. Let a schedule help. Your phone can close chosen apps at set times. Our guide to blocking apps for certain hours covers iPhone and Android.

We built Unglue for that last step. It blocks the apps you choose until you earn minutes with something in real life, like a walk with the pram or a few pages of a book, and you can schedule blocking for the hours you want to keep for your baby. On iPhone it uses Apple's Screen Time framework. If you and your partner want to make it a shared plan, Buddy Code lets one of you hold the code that loosens the other's limits. Our guide to when your partner is always on their phone covers how to agree on that kindly. Yes, we are an app helping you spend less time in apps. We see it.

When to talk to someone

Phones and radio waves are not a medical worry you need to raise with a doctor. A few other things are worth a conversation with your GP, doctor, midwife or health visitor:

  • You feel low, anxious or unable to cope for more than the first couple of weeks after the birth. The NHS notes that postnatal depression is common and that the baby blues usually pass within two weeks.
  • You find yourself reaching for the phone to escape most of the day, and it worries you.
  • You have questions about your baby's development, hearing, or how they respond to you.

Common questions

Is it safe to use my phone while holding my baby?

Yes. Reading or scrolling holds the phone away from your body, which gives far less radio exposure than a call held to the head, according to the UK Health Security Agency. Health agencies have not linked phone radio waves with health problems. For long calls while holding your baby, speakerphone or earphones are an easy extra step.

Is phone radiation harmful to babies?

The evidence says no. The FDA says the weight of evidence has not linked phone radio waves with health problems, including in children, and a WHO-commissioned review of 63 studies found no link with brain cancer. Public exposure limits sit about 50 times below the level known to cause harmful effects.

Should I keep my phone away from my baby when they sleep?

It is a sensible habit. Keeping the phone out of the cot or Moses basket lowers any radio exposure further and keeps the sleep space clear. If you use the phone for white noise, place it across the room.

Is it bad to use my phone while breastfeeding?

There is no evidence it harms your baby. A small Cal Poly study found mothers interacted less with their babies during feeds when using a device. Many parents keep one or two feeds a day phone-free and do what gets them through the night feeds.

What does "possibly carcinogenic" mean for phones?

It is IARC's Group 2B, a label for agents where some evidence of a cancer link exists but chance or bias cannot be ruled out. It describes the strength of the evidence in 2011 and says nothing about the size of a risk. The larger 2024 review commissioned by the WHO did not find a link with brain cancer.

Does using my phone near my baby affect their brain development?

There is no evidence that radio waves affect a baby's brain development. The research that does exist is about attention: babies show more distress during the moments a parent is absorbed in a phone. Long-term effects have not been shown. Putting the phone down and looking back at your baby is the whole fix.

Sources

Thank you for your attention.

We know it's one of the most valuable things you have.

— The Unglue team