No longer should expecting mothers stay paranoid as they use their mobile phones during pregnancy, because a Kiwi man is doing his best to cash in on the fear. Neil Bullock, of Hamilton, New Zealand believes his MummyWrap, made from material embedded with copper wire called Swiss Shield, will protect the fetus inside the womb from electro-magnetic fields. As far as we remember from physics class, a Faraday cage must surround the object completely to be functional, and the holes must be smaller than the wavelength of the signal that is being blocked.
Nonetheless, the product is marching on:
Mr Bullock said he expected interest from those in the path of Transpower’s proposed 400Kv grid upgrade through the Waikato. He had approached curtain makers with the fabric but had received no interest. He was not scaremongering to sell the product, he said.
“There is a fear factor to a degree but it’s a question of how much protection you want to give an unborn child. If you have taken the trouble to get pregnant . . . then (people) want to protect their baby.”
National Radiation Laboratory scientific adviser Owen Kilgour said there was no scientific conclusion either way on whether EMR was a risk to babies in the womb.
While the fabric would offer some protection against high-frequency radiation like cellphones and appliances, it would not protect against low-frequency magnetic fields that were the main concern with power lines.
“It could easily be misleading for this product to be marketed to people concerned about the proposed Waikato line,” Mr Kilgour said.
“Most people’s concerns relate to magnetic field exposures and this product will do nothing to shield them.”
More from Waikato Times…
(Hat tip: Gizmodo)