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A new study has found that women who use mobile phones while pregnant, even just two or three times a day, are significantly more likely to give birth to children with behavioral problems.

"The study of more than 13,000 Danish mothers... found that children who were exposed to mobiles before and after birth were 25 percent more at risk of emotional problems, 24 percent more likely to have difficulties relating to other children, 35 percent more likely to be hyperactive and 49 percent more likely to have behavioural problems," writes the Herald Sun's Grant McArthur.

"The results of the study, the first of its kind, have taken the top scientists who conducted it by surprise," writes The Independent's Geoffrey Lean. "But they follow warnings against both pregnant women and children using mobiles by the official Russian radiation watchdog body, which believes that the peril they pose 'is not much lower than the risk to children's health from tobacco or alcohol.'"

Still, this may have nothing to do with radiation - as the Daily Mail's Vanessa Allen notes, the researchers warned that "there were other possible explanations, including that mothers who were frequently on the phone through pregnancy might continue the pattern after birth, spending less time with their babies."

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Aarhus in Denmark, will be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology.

More here from the Daily Telegraph ... more here from TechRadar ... more here from TG Daily ... more here from Phones Review ... more here from the Sydney Morning Herald ... and more here from the Detroit Free Press.