Congratulations, and welcome to your new baby. This is a short, friendly list of small changes that cost little and are easy to keep up, all aimed at lowering the wireless (radiofrequency) exposure around a newborn. None of it requires giving up your phones or your Wi-Fi.
A fair word on where the science sits: official bodies such as ARPANSA and the WHO currently say exposures within the legal limits are not established to cause harm.
Many independent researchers disagree, pointing to biological effects well below those limits, and say infants deserve extra care because their bodies and brains are small and still developing. This guide takes the precautionary side — if a simple step lowers exposure at no real cost, take it. The reasoning behind each step is set out in the EMRSTOP Technical Library, which is where the steps below come from.
Five Habits That Do Most of the Work
If you only change a few things, change these.
- Keep the router out of the nursery, and out of the room next to the cot.
- Switch Wi-Fi off overnight with a timer, or at the power point.
- Keep phones out of the cot room, or in airplane mode if they must be there.
- Do not use a pulsed digital (GHz) baby monitor; choose a movement sensor or a wired option.
- Keep your phone off the baby's body and out of the pram and bassinet.
The Nursery and Sleep Zone
Sleep is when a small body does most of its growing and repair, so the cot is the place to be most careful. EMRSTOP's Sleep-Zone Optimisation Guide treats the sleep area as the highest-impact place to act, and these steps are drawn from it.
- Turn Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off at night on every device in or near the room
- Keep phones, tablets and smart speakers out of the room, and do not charge anything beside the cot
- Move the cot away from walls carrying dense wiring, and away from powerboards and meter boxes
- Unplug what is not needed — avoid electric blankets, heated mattresses and plug-in night lights with transformers close to the cot
- Open a window daily, skip scented candles and air fresheners, and keep humidity roughly between 40% and 60%
- Be careful with smart toys, sound machines and projectors that connect by Bluetooth or Wi-Fi — pick plain battery or wired versions
A red flag worth a quick check: a smart meter or the meter box on the other side of the cot wall. If so, move the cot to another wall.
Wi-Fi and Mobile Phones
These are simple settings changes, based on EMRSTOP's Router & Device Management Guide.
The router
- Place it where the Wi-Fi is actually used, not in a bedroom and not in the room closest to where anyone sleeps — mount it about 1 to 1.5 metres high
- Set a nightly schedule so Wi-Fi switches off while the household sleeps
- If you do not need 5 GHz, turn it off; if the router allows it, lower the transmit power
- Use an Ethernet cable for anything that stays put: the TV, a console, a desktop computer, a streaming box
- Ask your provider about a router with a simple off timer if yours lacks one — or fit an external 240V wall timer between the router and the power point, so it physically cuts power on a schedule regardless of what the router itself supports
Phones and tablets
- Use airplane mode while feeding, settling or holding the baby, then switch Wi-Fi back on only if needed
- Do not rest a phone on the baby, on the pram hood, or tucked beside the cot — keep it in a bag instead of a pocket against the body
- Take calls on speaker or with a wired headset, away from the baby
- Download videos and music first, then play them in airplane mode
- Turn off Bluetooth and background Wi-Fi scanning when not in use
- Consider a USB-C (or USB) to Ethernet adapter for a phone or tablet used at a fixed spot in the house — it lets you leave Wi-Fi and mobile data switched off entirely while staying connected. Good adapters are inexpensive, robust, and reliable, and a wired link over your home broadband (e.g. NBN) and an Ethernet cable is often faster and more stable than Wi-Fi, subject to your plan and connection
Mobile signal
Where you can, pick a quieter spot in the home for the baby's room, away from the side facing a nearby tower or neighbours' routers. Phones work harder, and so transmit more, when mobile signal is weak, and a wired internet connection for the household devices takes load off the router as well.
Baby Monitors: The Choice That Matters Most
The monitor is the one wireless device placed within arm's reach of the baby and left running for hours every day, which is why it deserves more thought than the router.
What a standard digital monitor does
Most digital audio and video monitors send the baby's sound or picture to the parent unit by radio, usually in the gigahertz range: DECT systems at 1.9 GHz, and many video models at 2.4 GHz. The signal is sent in rapid pulses, and the transmitter sits a metre or less from the cot. Swiss federal health authorities have measured these devices and found them under the official limits, with the field falling away quickly with distance. The same authority still advises minimising an infant's exposure as a precaution, because the long-term effects of weak high-frequency fields are not well understood. It also notes that video monitors need a continuous carrier, so they transmit all the time, while most audio monitors transmit only when sound crosses a threshold.
The independent-science view on EMRSTOP goes further: it holds that pulsed, modulated signals can have biological effects well below the thermal limits that official guidelines rely on, and that an infant sleeping close to a transmitter for months is the situation precaution is meant for. A monitor is usually the closest transmitter to the baby and the one that runs longest, which is the reason to choose carefully.
The better choice: a movement sensor
A piezo-type movement monitor such as the Babysense uses a thin sensor pad under the cot mattress to pick up the tiny movements of breathing. The maker describes it as a passive system, with an alarm and a flashing light if it detects no movement for 20 seconds or fewer than 10 micro-movements a minute. It does not need to beam sound or video to a handset, so there is no transmitter in the cot at all. Check the exact model before buying: choose a plain wired unit with the alarm in a base unit, and avoid app-linked versions that connect by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
One honest limit: a movement monitor can give peace of mind, but it is not a substitute for safe sleep practice, and it is not proven to prevent SIDS. Follow the Red Nose safe sleeping guidance, which includes sleeping the baby in the parents' room for the first six to twelve months. In the same room, you will often not need a monitor at all.
If you do use a digital monitor
- Choose an audio-only model with voice activation, so it transmits only when the baby makes a sound
- Turn off any periodic range-check signal if the model allows it
- Keep the baby unit at least 1 metre from the cot, and the mains adaptor at least 50 cm away
- Skip continuously transmitting video models, especially for overnight use
- Switch the unit off when you are in the room
Everyday Handling and Feeding
- Keep the phone out of the hands that are holding the baby — if you need it for a photo or a feed timer, use airplane mode
- Do not place a laptop, tablet or phone on a lap with the baby, or on the bassinet
- Choose wired or battery-only toys, mobiles and white-noise machines over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi ones
- Use a manual or plug-in sterilising and warming routine where you can, rather than app-controlled bottle warmers and smart cots
- Ask visitors to keep their phones in a bag while they hold the baby — it is a small, kind request that usually goes down well
- In the car, put the phone in the glovebox or console, not on the baby seat
Further Reading and Sources
Everything above is educational, precautionary guidance and is not medical advice. For a home assessment or a second opinion, EMRSTOP offers consultations.
- EMRSTOP home and Technical Library
- Sleep-Zone Optimisation Guide
- Router & Device Management Guide
- Resources and further reading, including BioInitiative, Environmental Health Trust and ORSAA
- Swiss Federal Office of Public Health fact sheet on baby monitors
- Babysense Bassinet under-mattress monitor