So my wife is an intelligent, rational woman most of the time. In fact, she’s a doctor and an academic, so is very capable of analysing data and coming to an opinion. However, when it comes to the safety of our child, she turns into a very irrational being. He’s 3 months old and she’s very much taken on the role of protector. Every choice in life has to be considered for its potential impact on the boy’s health.

She’s convinced electromagnetic (EM) radiation is somehow harmful to him. This all started when we were reading reviews of baby monitors. I suggest you NEVER do this, for many reasons, but principally because you’ll read a load of links to quack websites about EM causing vague health symptoms and / or cancer. Of course, there is no evidence to back up these ideas, but every article published seems to have the problem that it’s impossible to prove a negative and that ‘further work is required in this area’. For every scientific article there is that proves no link to cancer (which according to one review amounts to approx 26,000 peer-reviewed articles), there is another page on a dubious pseudo-science website called something like “Responsible-health.com” that looks real but actually contains thinly-veiled complete bollocks. She never did physics at school, so glazes over when I mention things like the inverse square law. I think it’s fair to say she has even less of a clue about this than I do.

If it was just a thought process, it’d be OK but it’s having some pretty significant consequences. For example, in the last month:
– All of the cordless phones are unplugged and replaced with corded ones. OK, not a huge deal but a bit messy, and an unnecessary expense.
– I’ve bought a new router (which is amazing) so we have a big argument about whether 2 channel routers are doubly-harmful and whether 5GHz is worse than the old 2.4GHz. Of course neither of us really know what it means. Fortunately she’s letting the router stay for now.
– She’d rather not use the baby monitor. It’s got a breathing sensor that works really well and potentially reduces the risk of SIDS (a definite risk), but we leave it turned off in case it’s irradiating him (no proven risk).
– She’s bought 2 more baby monitors, which she read somewhere have lower radiation. They don’t, according to the product specification. I point this out and we now have three redundant monitors 🙄 An expensive habit.
– Most infuriatingly, I can’t remember the last day where she didn’t send me a link to a quack website harping on about the risks of wifi, and products that are available to alleviate the symptoms / risks. Shortly followed by an argument. I feel like we might be on the verge of a full scale WiFi ban at home.

Anyway, this is kind of a serious thing, and I genuinely want help from you people. I am at a loss to know what I can say or do that will help, and it’s genuinely causing problems for us. I love her (and the boy) but I just get exasperated by this and consequently I’m sure I’m not acting in the best way to defuse this situation. I’ve tried ignoring the situation, I’ve tried counter-argument. I’ve even tried extreme sarcasm. Nothing works. By the way, apart from the obvious sleep deprivation, everything else is fine – I don’t think she’s depressed / psychotic or anything.

Maybe I’m over-exaggerating. Maybe it’s not a big deal. I’m not really sure what I want you to say. Maybe some helpful links to articles that she can read. Maybe some tips for me to deal with this. Suggestions of other things for her to worry about (She got sidetracked for a few hours with articles on internet grooming, but that didn’t last very long).

I guess it’s kind of amusing to laugh at, but this is a genuine problem and, well, I’d prefer it if flippant comments could be kept to a minimum.

Fire away.

tin foil cot ?

(I’m not entirely joking)

Play the long game, ride it through for a year and it will be over and you’ll have other worries

djglover – Member
Play the long game, ride it through for a year and it will be over and you’ll have other worries

this,
I cant see any way you are going to win this one

I’d be more worried about her mental health than the baby, that kind of obsession doesn’t sound healthy.

Not sure I can offer any help, but has she found any credible research reported in actual medical or science journals? Did you point out that you can’t escape from wifi signals these days, regardless of what you do with your own devices? How would she react to that?

Are you sure she doesn’t have post-natal depression? That can cause all kinds of anxieties about caring for the baby, some of them irrational. The only thing I can really suggest is to keep an eye on her and see if she develops any more irrational fears relating to the baby, as it could be post-natal mental health issue.

This will help you visualize what goes on inside a head lacking the Y chromosome 😛

link

What about all the electromagnetic radiation from the sun??

Its strange that all these pseudo bollocks sites are all trying to get you to buy something on their fantastically reviewed research which funnily enough is all unpublished and not peer reviewed.

+1

Fix it now or you’ll not be able to go anywhere with the baby – “as there’s wifi everywhere”

1) she’s wrong.

2) we covered a lot of this here recently: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/just-annoyed-one-of-the-neighbours-mobile-phone-mast-content

3) if we assume EM radiation is a problem, we’re all doomed. The universe is full of background radiation to start with, and that aside, look at radio.

Sunscreen for the baby… Cuts out those harmful rays…

Sunscreen for the baby… Cuts out those harmful rays…

Even the wifi?

It’s tough. You can point out that there are thirty other WiFi access points visible but it won’t make any difference. I would do all to calm your wife for the moment as first babies are quite scary and relaxed parents trump all other effects. Things will change as other priorities come up.

I have some friends who are convinced that WiFi is bad for them and there is no amount of numbers that you can show to compare it with the 100s of mobile phones that might be in the same room giving of radiation in all sorts of frequency bands. I just unplug wifi when they are there and they are happy and it causes me no problems

Edit: If you have to discuss it then you might want to go down the line of pointing out that hospitals have 100s of WiFi access points in them and there is no way they around be doing that if there was any evidence of problems. But for the moment it may be safer to leave it

*urge to link to the ‘I’m getting poor wife reception’ thread as an example of what you’ll have to do if WiFi is banned*

I do RF Hazard assessments as part of my job. SOME wi-fi routers i’ve seen come with a warning to state you shouldn’t work within ~20cm of them, purely aimed at people sat working next to them all day.
Wi-Fi doesn’t have the energy to mess with the atomic make-up of our cells, the worst it could possibly do* is heat us up.
*(we think)

Not sure I can offer any help, but has she found any credible research reported in actual medical or science journals?

Of course not – there isn’t any! The closest you get are a handful of review articles pointing out that although it’s extremely unlikely, there remain some unknowns. Of course, these sorts of statements get seized upon by quacks.

Did you point out that you can’t escape from wifi signals these days, regardless of what you do with your own devices? How would she react to that?

Badly, I’d imagine. I haven’t pointed out the risks of cosmic radiation for fear that we’d never go outside. A few weeks ago she was only worried about baby monitors until I pointed out that phones and Wifi were basically the same and she’s now paranoid about all of them.

As I say, I really don’t think it’s a depression thing. She’s not in a bad mood, she’s eating normally, sleeping well when possible. I guess it’s the definition of an over-valued idea neurosis, but it does seem to be in isolation with no other signs of any mental health issues as far as I can tell.

I can’t believe I’m even entertaining the idea of a tin foil crib…

It’s an odd thing that happens to some parents. My mate’s wife is a well respected biology teacher in a top independent school. She gives her kids homeopathic medicine and won’t let them play rough.

In every other way she’s completely rational. I’m very fortunate that my partner hasn’t adopted any of these quirks.

So, no help really, other than for you to know you’re not alone. 😕

I’d prefer it if flippant comments could be kept to a minimum

Remind her of the inverse square law and if need be stick some Faraday cages or EMR shields between the baby and any emitters, whilst you wait for your wife to adopt a more logical standpoint (could take a while). At least she hasn’t developed a fear of falling asleep because of the baby often waking her for a feed just after that point – I’m currently trying to solve that!

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More madness here.

Sounds like a lack of sleep to me.

Good Lord. One of my ideas was going to be to show this thread to the wife and hope she sees a barrage of sensible thoughts. But now I just fear that I’ll be paying for extortionate shipping on a silly designer tin foil hat.

Argh, these people make me so angry, the way they prey on poor paranoid souls.

Wifi definitely is harmful. Just look at all these people who can’t stop messing with their phones. No wifi, they do it less. Science.

I don’t mean to sound flippant here but where is she doing her research, the Internet? Turn off the WiFi, no more research, no more obsession. Like yours, my wife is an intelligent doctor but give her 10min on Google and all hell can break lose. If she is worried about something, she will find the evidence to support that worry

I genuinely do sympathise though, the human mind can be a strange thing.

Most parents can be a bit funny about their first born. By the time you get to three kids you barely remember to feed them, let alone worry about WiFi.

Good luck.

I know it’s a cliche, but… us blokes (at least most of us on here) want to be all rational and analytical about stuff like this. That’s not going to help here, as your wife isn’t interested in analytical explanations. About the best idea I can come up with is that she might take the advice of an authority figure she trusts – is there any such person you could get to talk to her who would explain that it’s all OK, that it’s reasonable and normal to be worried about such things, but that her concerns are unfounded?

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The fear based economy, just what would you do with yourself if it turned out that you didn’t pay all the money you had to protect against non existent threats…
The ex’s sister was in the world will kill us mentality, there was no arguing really. You could prove things but the ah but, they would say that, not conclusive, always doubt crap that seems to fill the internet came out

WiFi – firmly in the non ionizing section

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Just put the **** phone down!

Though I’m pleased to see you can also get these:
https://www.bellyarmor.com/mens-boxer-brief/

Sorry OP – if your wife does come here can I just point out that the things on that site are the most pointless things ever.

Is she a doctor as in GP, or say a doctor in another academic field?

I was going to suggest cognitive behavioural therapy, however this would require full commitment from your wife to participate, which may be the biggest hurdle if she is unwilling to acknowledge the issues you are both having.

She’s a doctor as in hospital doctor. She thinks I’m being laissez-faire about our son’s health, and says I’m naive and arrogant for assuming I know the risks 😥

Honestly your buggered then.

Get your own obsession about fluoride in baby food or something, something really ridiculous, show her how silly she’s being.
Or try to push the obsessive impulse into something of actual benefit to your child. I would start talking to her about attachment theory, see if she picks that up, as there are millions of articles on Google about it, and it can only result in a happier baby…

So does she understand the concept of peer reviewed research, or is she rejecting that, despite I presume having been taught about it? It saddens me that somebody intelligent who should have been trained in assessing research is unable to process the information properly.

I know that’s not helpful, but I come back to my suggestion before – if that’s what she is, there ought to be somebody she respects the opinions of who has a sensible perspective on this.

Is the “breathing monitor” hard wired to the main unit ? i.e is it a hard mat that you slip under baby ( this is what we use)
As we are all on the same floor we don’t have the remote monitor switched on ( I lost the base charger for it anyway), and can hear the alarm when it occasionally goes off.
Like you say , SIDS is a far bigger risk then anything else you mentioned

https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2015/feb/15/better-call-saul-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-real-health-risk

Seriously though, i think you’re on to a loser here. Just turn the router off, you could get her to go round to next door and ask them to move their routers to the other side of the house or something.

This is not about the WiFi, she is anxious. If you try and reason with her it will make it worse.

The best thing you can do is change the topic and encourage her to focus on something else – exercise, meditation, knitting etc.. Ultimately she needs cognitive therapy. I went through this after our boy was very ill in week two and my wife became very anxious about many things harming him.

I edited my post out because in hindsight it sounded flippant

I think she needs help or at least someone to help her see she’s being irrational

Good luck.

A female relative had something similar when she had her first child, a boy.
She kept on obsessing that something bad would happen to him.
Prob a combination of OCD and anxiety, it passed after a year or so.

I so sympathise with the OP; even at the age of 57 my wife comes out wth some remarkaby ill-advised worries, which she usually mentions to me after lights-out when I’m just drifting off. It’s not just a female thing; we all have a need to worry about something or other and we tend to focus on irrational fears until something else comes along. I’m currently on a multi-country Africa trip and every country brings new worries, mostly concerned with airports and catching flights.

My brother in the USA is married to an American who is highly-strung to put it mildly; she and her friends take tranquillisers and see therapists regularly to deal with their paranoia, which seems mostly to be inspired by the media. Almost very week my bro emails me in exasperation at the latest crazy phobia. They have spent extortionate amounts of money on alternative therapies and weird pseudo-religions in an attempt to find peace. It’s a big industry in the USA.

She’d rather not use the baby monitor. It’s got a breathing sensor that works really well

What make/model?

I feel your pain. I’m really liking the tin foil cot/Faraday cage cot idea. Maybe it will satisfy her or make her realise how mad she’s being. Either way you get the monitor back on.

*flippant comment ahead*

Get her on the anti-vax websites. Take her mind off the Wi-Fi thing.