Top 5 EMF Culprits Disrupting Your Baby’s Sleep

Why and how to create a sleep space that supports your child’s growth, development and health

Getting the nursery ready is exciting and overwhelming — especially for first-time parents. Choking hazards removed, check. Theme, color scheme and registry, check. Nontoxic paints and materials, big check. Safe sleep space with low-electromagnetic fields (EMF) …wait, what?!

Creating a rejuvenating sleep space for your child is by far one of the most important things you can do to support their growth, development and health. Why? Sleep is the time when the body does its purging and repair at the cellular level. If there are high levels of EMFs the body activates the Cell Danger Response (CDR) which instructs our cells to stay “closed” thereby eliminating the ability to take out the cellular “trash”. Normally, this reaction protects us from harmful things in the environment getting deeper into our tissues but when the body is exposed on a chronic basis, oxidative stress builds-up without a chance to recover. This can lead to problems with cellular division, cancer, behavioral disorders, immune system dysfunction and poor sleep! In fact, radio frequencies and AC magnetic fields are both now classified as a Class 2B Carcinogens by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, same as lead, arsenic & asbestos.

Do you remember a time when you were sick, fatigued and needed more sleep? That fatigue can be a symptom of your body engaging to protect you via the CDR. The reason you feel fatigued is often that your body has shut down energy production and switched into defense mode. Removing environmental factors like unhealthy levels of EMFs helps a child’s body focus on rapid growth and cell division that is biologically normal.

Top 5 EMF Culprits:

1.       Router/Modem – The wireless Wi-Fi signal is generally the highest radio frequency (RF) radiation source in the home, as much ~5,000X to 15,000X above the safe limit for a sleep space!

Option 1 : Ideally, hardwire your home with shielded Cat7 ethernet. You can eliminate Wi-Fi entirely by replacing wireless connections with wired alternatives for your devices.

Option 2: If you choose to keep Wi-Fi, locate the wireless router away from the sleeping areas, turn the 5GHz setting off so only the 2.4GHz is active, reduce the power of the 2.4GHz network to the lowest setting possible and turn the router off during sleep times using a remote outlet switch or timer. You can also shield the router to reduce the signal power if your router doesn’t have a power level setting.

2.       Baby Monitor – After the router, a baby monitor is typically the second highest wireless source of RF radiation affecting a child’s sleep space – typically 2,500X to 5,000X above the safe limit. Partly because the signal is very strong and partly because it’s very close to their bed and body.

Option 1: Consider not using one. You may be surprised at how difficult it is to not hear your baby in the home when she needs something.

Option 2: Get a monitor that you can hardwire like the D-Link or use a wireless one sparingly. If you use a wireless one, place it as far away from the crib as possible and shield with a Signal Tamer or WaveCage Mini. Both the base station and one in the nursery likely need a shield, most now are two-way communication devices.

3.       Sound Machine – Depending on the brand, these can produce ~500X more than the safe limit of AC magnetic fields when they are on. I recommend either the HoMedics or PICTEK models and be sure to distance these at least 3’ from the bed.

4.       Cell Phones – Cell phones emit strong RF signals, so keep them 10’ or more away from the nursery or put them in airplane mode. This includes rooms that are next to the nursery because Wi-Fi/cell signals travel through most modern building materials such as drywall and windows.

5.       Cords Near the Bed – Our bodies are great conductors since we’re ~60% water, so we attract and adsorb voltage from the environment. Stray AC electric voltage comes out of all electrical cords that are plugged in to a power outlet, even when they are off. Place all cords as far away from the crib as possible, ideally 10’ and at least 3’ away. This alone can reduce a child’s body voltage from the surrounding environment by at least half.

To Learn More:

• Read the BioInitative’s Report 19 page Summary for the Public. This is the preeminent summary of known health impacts of EMFs, including Radio Frequency (RF) Radiation and AC Magnetic Fields on the human body. The 1,500-page report authored by an international panel of M.D. and Ph. D. scientists and physicians, analyzes +3,800 scientific, peer reviewed studies showing adverse health hazards of electromagnetic radiation, especially with children. Disturbing correlations have been discovered between electro-pollution and a host of diseases and disorders, including cancer, neurological diseases, respiratory diseases, behavioral disorders – ADD and autism, immune dysfunction, Blood-Brain Barrier permeability, reproductive failure & birth defects, chronic fatigue, insomnia, depression, headaches, muscle/joint pain, chronic inflammation and many more.

• Check out the Building Biology Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas

What’s a Building Biologist?

When people hear that I’m a Building Biologist the first question is often “What’s a Building Biologist?” I say something like “A Building Biologist is someone who looks at a built space - whether it’s a home, school or place of work and assesses it for everything that directly affects the health of the people who spend time there. This includes things like building materials, electromagnetic fields, air and water quality.” In short, a Building Biologist is a House Doctor and Building Biology leads the way in the field of holistic home health, offering a systematic and reliable approach to making spaces safe and nurturing.

Building Biology (or Baubiologie) was started in Germany during the post-World War II reconstruction. The German government built many homes with cement because the material was readily available, making building homes on a mass scale quick and easy. After several years, they found that many of the inhabitants were no longer using the homes. They were sleeping and living outside because the cement structures were making them sick. A multidisciplinary team of architects, doctors and engineers was organized to study the unusual illness patterns. The studies they produced found that the rapid construction of the buildings gave the materials insufficient time to off-gas various volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Additionally, they found a variety of problems with the hastily installed electrical systems. They concluded that post war building construction materials and techniques were associated with toxicity and ill-health for some occupants and the term “sick building syndrome” was coined.

Building Biology continued to develop in Europe for more then 30 years when Helmut Ziehe first brought it to North America in 1983. Environmental guidelines and measurement protocols were established to help create homes and buildings that supported the health of the occupants. Engineers, environmental technicians and doctors used scientific studies to develop today’s Building Biology Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas and established their Guiding Principle: Any risk reduction is worth aiming for. Nature is the ultimate standard. These guidelines focused on the bedroom where people typically spend a third of their lives and creating a healthy surrounding environment during sleep when most of the body’s healing and rejuvenation takes place. A good night’s sleep is essential to daily mental and physical performance as well as long term health. By today’s standards, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests up to 30% of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may be the cause of “sick building syndrome” and complaints related to poor indoor air quality.

Now you might be asking, how are Building Biologists different from a home inspector, a LEED or Energy Star inspector or anyone else helping you with maintaining and updating your home? Building Biology takes a holistic approach based on 25 Principles that steer decision making.

The 25 Building Biology Principles

Source: Building Biology Institute

Site and Community Design

1. Verify that the site is free of naturally occurring and man-made health hazards.

2. Place dwellings so occupants are undisturbed by sources of man-made air, soil, water, noise and electro-pollution.

3. Place dwellings in well-planned communities that provide ample access to fresh air, sunshine and nature.

4. Plan homes and developments considering the needs of community, families and individuals of all ages.

Occupant Health and Well-Being

5. Use natural and unadulterated building materials.

6. Allow natural self-regulation of indoor air humidity using hygroscopic (humidity buffering) building materials.

7. Assure low total moisture content and rapid desiccation of wet construction processes in new buildings.

8. Design for a climatically appropriate balance between thermal insulation and thermal storage capacity.

9. Plan for climatically appropriate surface and air temperature.

10. Provide for ample ventilation.

11. Use appropriate thermal radiation strategies for heating buildings including passive solar wherever viable.

12. Provide an abundance of well-balanced natural light and illumination while using color in accordance with nature.

13. Provide adequate acoustical protection from harmful noise and vibration.

14. Utilize non-toxic building materials that have neutral or pleasant natural scents.

15. Use appropriate water and moisture exclusion techniques to prevent interior growth of fungi, bacteria, dust and allergens.

16. Assure best possible water quality by applying purification technologies if required.

17. Utilize physiological and ergonomic knowledge in interior and furniture design.

18. Consider proportion, harmonic measure, order and shape in design.

Natural and Man-Made Electromagnetic Radiation Safety

19. Minimize indoor interference with vital cosmic and terrestrial radiation.

20. Minimize man-made power system and radio frequency radiation exposure generated from within the building and from outside sources.

21. Avoid use of building materials that have elevated radioactivity levels.

Environmental Protection, Social Responsibility and Energy Efficiency

22. Construction materials production and building processes shall provide for health and social well-being in every phase of the building’s life cycle.

23. Avoid the use of building materials that deplete irreplaceable natural resources or are being harvested in an unsustainable manner.

24. Minimize energy consumption throughout the life of the building utilizing climate-based and energy efficient design, energy and water saving technologies and renewable energy.

25. Consider the embodied energy and environmental life cycle costs when choosing all materials used in construction.

These guidelines help to assure a dwelling is life-enhancing for all its inhabitants and not detrimental to its builders, with as little disruption to the environment as possible. They apply to new construction as well as to renovations.

Has Building Biology piqued your interest? I’d love to hear from you!