Babies & Radiation Risk: Complete Guide To Baby-Proofing (EMF)


If you are expecting or you have babies and toddlers you need to know about EMF.  I have a 2-year-old and I’m very glad I have learned about EMF radiation.

As it turns out, our little ones are more exposed than you and I due to their thin skull and soft bones.

Here are our best tips on how to keep your baby safe from EMF radiation.


Abbreviations used in this article:
EMF: Electromagnetic Fields (All types of radiation)
RF: Radio Frequencies (Radiation from wifi, cell towers, and other wireless technologies)
ELF: Extreme Low Frequencies (Radiation from power lines)
EHS: Electro-Hypersensitivity (Syndrome where you are very sensitive to EMF radiation)
V/m: Volts over meters (How we measure RF radiation)


Babies Are Two Times More Receptive To Radiation

Babies and EMF radiation while using iPad on sofa

There are many reasons why we need to protect babies from EMF radiation. One of the main reasons is that babies are actually more receptive to radiation than adults.

In his book “Radiation Nation”, EMF expert Daniel Debaun explains that babies are two times more receptive to radiation. Because babies have a smaller skull and softer bones the RF radiation from a cellphone or an iPad can reach all the way through the head.

Tip
Note: I can REALLY recommend this book if you are new to EMFs. You can get it here inside the author’s store which is full of amazing gear to protect you from EMF.

This is very important to understand because babies are fragile, to begin with.

This actually counts for all kids who are still growing. As long as they are still growing their bones are softer and they are generally smaller, which means that the radiation can more easily reach their vital organs.

Another reason why babies are more receptive to radiation is that they have more water in the body. Newborn babies have 78% water in their bodies and adults have closer to 60% water in their bodies. This contributes to the fact that babies and toddlers are more susceptible to radiation.

The last reason why we need to pay special attention to EMF around our babies is that they will be exposed for their entire life. If you’re a parent today you have most likely been living most of your life without RF radiation. The technology behind our wireless technologies is still only a couple of decades old and it took time before we all had smartphones and iPads.

9 Tips For Radiation-Free Baby Environments

Let’s look at how you create a good and safe environment for babies with as little EMF radiation as possible. The first thing we have to look to is the amount of RF emitting devices around them. RF radiation is the radio frequencies that are emitted by smartphones, tablets, computer, wifi routers, etc.

Here are some good ways to turn off the RF radiation in your home.

1) Avoid wifi signals

Smartphones, tablets, and laptops are typically connected to our wifi routers. This is easy to change by simply shutting off the Wi-Fi signal completely and turning off the Wi-Fi signal on your devices that you use around your baby.

By shutting off the Wi-Fi signal on your router you create a safer environment. Routers are one of the main sources of RF radiation in our homes.

It’s safer to use your computers with ethernet cables. You simply connect your laptops and desktop computers directly to the router with an ethernet cable. This is how we have Internet access in our home then this enables us to shut off the Wi-Fi signal.

By doing that you can eliminate the EMF radiation from your laptop and desktop computer 100%.

It’s time to go back to a cabled connection which is faster, more secure, and radiation free. If not for your own sake and then for your babies sake 😉

2) Turn smartphones & tablets to flight mode around your baby

You can still use your smartphones and your tablets around your baby as long as you switch them to flight mode.

When they are on flight mode you need to make sure you have turned Bluetooth off as well as the wifi signal. You can actually have your iPhone set to flight mode and still have the Bluetooth and the cellular signal turned on. Here’s what your screen should look like:

FLight mode without EMF radiation

This is really important to pay attention to. After the latest updates from Apple, this is not always switched off automatically when you turn the phone on flight mode.

The Bluetooth signal is also emitting radiation of the same kind as the cellular signal and the wifi. All of these free different sources (wifi, cellular, & Bluetooth) are radio frequencies which can be harmful to your baby (and yourself!).

3) Use this instead of wireless baby monitors

This is a big one.

Monitors are emitting levels of RF radiation. It’s insane when you think about it.

It made me sick to realize that I had been putting a radiation emitting device next to my baby’s head every time he was sleeping!

When we are sleeping we are supposed to regenerate and rest. This is even more true for babies because they need to rest in order to grow and develop. Babies sleep most of the time when they are newborn and they need a radio silent environment in order to get the rest they need.

Several studies have shown that RF radiation disturbs our REM sleep. It’s one of the main and most common symptoms for people who are hypersensitive to electromagnetic fields.

Luckily, there are other ways of monitoring your babies sleep. You can simply buy a camera that connects to a wired ethernet cable. This way you can access the video and sound feed from your laptop and monitor how your baby sleeps. This way you can both be on a wired ethernet cable which means none of you will be exposed to RV radiation.

It takes a little more planning and you will need to install an ethernet cable but that’s a cheap price to pay in order to make sure that your baby can sleep safe and sound.

4) Pay attention to cell towers outside the bedroom

More and more cell towers are being put up everywhere in our city and rural environments.

Within the next year or two, my city will have 25% more cell towers! You can typically find maps over this online in order to know exactly where they are being placed. This is important to pay attention to because the radiation levels from the cell towers are spiking.

It only gets worse as the world is preparing itself for 5G networks. This means that we will have cellular antennas in lampposts as well. As you probably know, they are getting harder and harder to spot as they blend into the design and patterns around them and the antennas also get smaller.

The only way to know exactly how much radiation you have in your house is to use an EMF meter.

Here’s the model I am using. It’s pretty cheap and it will measure all the types of radiation building biologists are concerned about:

  1. RF radiation (wifi, smartphones, laptops, Bluetooth, cell towers, smart meters, etc.)
  2. ELF radiation (power lines, dirty electricity, etc.)
  3. Magnetic fields
  4. Electric fields
Tip
The Cornet is an instrument used professionals and amateurs alike for measuring these things. It’s actually quite affordable and easy to use. You can read more about it here (with a list of what it can test for).

The worst thing about cell towers is that you cannot turn them off. They are constantly emitting radiation. So, if you have a strong signal outside your house you will need to put up some protection on your walls and against the windows. We decided to shield our walls with EMF protective paint. You can read everything here about how you apply EMF protective paint. It’s not too hard, that you need to paint over it afterward because it’s a black-colored paint.

5) Limit TV screen time as well

You might think that it’s only your smartphone and tablet that’s the problem. But our TVs are also emitting radiation. Especially those that are smart TVs with wireless connections.

Your smart TV is constantly contacting and connecting to Your router. Even if you have turned off your wireless signal completely your TV will still try to find a signal by constantly emitting RF radiation. This is a big problem because there’s simply no way to turn the radiation off.

It’s much better to get a (big) computer monitor mounted on the wall and use that instead of the “smart” TV. This way you can avoid the wireless signal and you can be sure there are no radio frequencies. It’s what we call a “dumb TV” but it’s actually not that dumb to avoid the EMF radiation from your TV.

6) How to talk to grandma (with video) on iPad and smartphones

We all want our babies to see their grandparents while they talk to them on the phone. It’s the cutest thing to see grandparents and babies talk with video.

So, how did you that if you cannot use your tablet or your smartphone with a cellular or Wi-Fi signal?

You might still need to get your phone and tablets connected to the Internet once in a while and you can do so by turning on the cellular signal. They will also emit RF radiation but that can be limited to around a few percents of the normal radiation levels by putting on EMF shielding covers.

The EMF shielding covers are very effective. Make sure you don’t get your hands on cheap Chinese knockoff’s as they are often not doing a good job of protecting you. The ones I link to above work really great and otherwise, you will have to do your own readings which is easy to do with EMF meters (more on those later).

7) Keep a safe distance

It can be difficult to get rid of all the wireless signals in your home. If you just bought a huge and expensive Smart TV you might not be ready let it pass on to a new owner just yet. But even when we do that we are still subject to radiation from cell towers and background radiation from other wifi signals, smart meters, etc.

So what can you do?

One thing to keep in mind about EMF radiation is that distance is your friend.

The more distance you add toward the radiation sources the safer you and your baby are. The best thing about adding more distance to the source of the radiation is that every time you double the distance you lower the amount of radiation four times. This is what we call “the inverse-square law” which works for all types of radiation.

So what’s a safe distance to a Wi-Fi router or the smart TV? Here are some general guidelines in order to keep the amount of radiation below the limits that are being recommended by building biologists.

Here’s how it looks at my EMF meter when I add 4 feet distance to my iPhone:

By adding 4 feet distance to my iPhone the RF radiation drops to below 0.2 V/m. It’s still not super low but as you add more distance the radiation quickly drops to 0.15, 1.0, 0.8, etc.

Safe distances for EMF emitting sources:

  • Standard wifi routers: 15 feet (4.5 meters) or more
  • Smartphones: 4 feet (1.4 meters) or more
  • Laptops: 6 feet (1.8 meters) or more

These are levels of RF radiation I have been able to measure myself with my EMF meter. But you should only take these as examples. You need to do your own readings or consult a building biologist in order to know exactly how much radiation you have in your specific case. There can be many other factors that come into play when we are talking about radiation from our wireless devises.

8) How to know exactly where the radiation sources are

As soon as you know exactly where the radiation comes from and where the radiation levels are high you can start to do something about it.

So, the first step here is to get an EMF meter in order to do your own readings.

When we first got the EMF meter we were surprised to find out that we actually had quite a lot of radiation in our living room. We found out about a strong RF signal from a cell tower just across the street which we did not pay attention to before we did the readings.

This is the EMF meter we use:

Tip
The Cornet is an instrument used professionals and amateurs alike for measuring these things. It’s actually quite affordable and easy to use. You can read more about it here (with a list of what it can test for).

This meter is very easy to use because it will let you know exactly when you are outside the safety guidelines from building biologist. You can see a picture of the meter above.

As you can see, there are some indicators on the right side of the screen going from green at the bottom to read at the top. This scale is calibrated according to the recommendations from the building biologists. This means, that you can actually measure whenever you are outside the “green area” even though you do not understand everything it says on the screen.

But it’s actually not that hard to get familiar with all the numbers on the screen.

It took me an evening to figure out how everything worked and that you can see, it’s a fairly easy-to-use meter because there are only four simple buttons to press. And just like your laptop, you can always switch it off and on again to start over. (trust me, I did that many times 😉

9) Find a safe place for the baby bed

As mentioned above, it’s especially important to give the baby a radio silent place to sleep. But wireless signals are not the only thing that can interfere with a good nights sleep for the little ones (as well as yourself).

It’s equally important to think about radiation sources in the walls as well as below the floor. If you are new to the world of EMFs this might come as a surprise for you. Power lines in your walls can create big magnetic fields and electric fields that can interfere with sleep.

This has been proven by several studies and you can use the same EMF meter that I link to above to figure out where these fields are hiding.

If you’re living in an old house with bad electrical wiring you are probably having problems with dirty electricity. This can happen when the wiring does not run parallel or if there are running more amps in one of the smaller wires inside the wires.

This quickly gets very technical and you don’t need to understand all this in order to know that you have to measure these things. You simply take the EMF meter and move it around the room along the walls.

The first time I did this I found the electric and magnetic fields that were way off the scale just inches away from my toddlers head.

I quickly realized that I have placed the baby bed on the other side of our fridge and our micro oven. Two hours later I have removed the whole thing to the other side of the wall. By doing so I had reduced the amount of radiation more than 50 times!

If only I had known this little earlier I could have avoided a lot of radiation around my toddler for 2 1/2 years!

These are the things you find out when you get an EMF meter and just started examining your home. It’s frightening and exciting at the same time because you may find more radiation than you want to!

How To Protect Unborn Baby From Radiation

Even unborn babies are strongly affected by wireless signals. Hundreds of doctors around the globe have gathered in “the baby safe project” in order to inform parents about the impact our many wireless technologies have on our unborn babies.

It’s extremely important to consider EMF radiation when you are pregnant. The unborn baby inside your stomach will be very receptible to all the sources of radiation in your environment.

It’s a huge responsibility and it’s totally up to you to offer the best possible environment and women around the globe are learning about EMFs and other things they can do to create the best possible start for their baby.

It’s generally a bad idea to use tablets and laptops close to your body and especially on top of your belly. They constantly emit radiation unless they are turned to flight mode and used with cables (for laptops).

EMF shielding blanket for your belly

If you still want to enjoy having your laptop or your iPad close to your body you can use an EMF shielding blanket. It’s a great product that has been developed by Daniel Debbaun whom I referenced at the beginning of this article. He has created several cool products which you can find at the shop I link to above.

He used to work in the telecom industry in Silicon Valley until he found out about EMF radiation. He’s especially focused on the radiation around kids. This blanket is great for pregnant women in order to protect their belly when cell phones and other RF signals are nearby.

You can also get the blankets here where you can also find additional shielding products.

Two Great (Online) Stores With EMF Protective Stuff

There are two really great options online for EMF shielding and protection.

These two stores have a great list of EMF protective products. There are EMF shielding cases for your smartphones, tablets, and laptops and there are blankets which we also mentioned above.

I personally use the smartphone covers and the air tube headphones from the Defender Shield shop.

They work just as described and I have also measured the levels myself with my own EMF meter and found that they keep their promises from “the sales pitches”.

  • The Defender Shield Shop (opens in new window)
    This shop (and all its products) is created by Daniel Debaun. He’s one of the pioneers within the EMS community. He actually quit his job in Silicon Valley when he learned that the products he helped develop were toxic. He worked for the telecom industry and decided to pivot and start creating products to shield people from the technology. He’s a great engineer and the products work really well.
    My wife and I are using the phone covers as well as the air tube headphones. they have an excellent sound quality which is quite uncommon for headphones using the non-EMF air tube technology (you can read much more about this on the website).
  • The Belly Armor Shop (opens in new window)
    The shop is created with an exclusive focus on products for babies and pregnant women. There are several cool products like baby hats and clothes as well as blankets for you to wrap around your belly whenever you are close to the EMF emitting devices.

You are actually in luck because EMF radiation has been around for a couple of decades but the products on the market have been close to horrible for several years.

Today people like Daniel Debaun have developed high-quality products that actually works in order to shield us and our kids from the many types of EMF radiation.

Sources:
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/
https://www.babysafeproject.org/

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