 Rebecca is a holistic practitioner in UK whose focus is on optimising bath and the first six years of life for the long-term well-being of the baby. To this end, she facilitates emotional healing, mindfulness, belief and behaviour change, community and connection for greater harmony during bath and beyond. She leads regular harmony singing circles and specialises in harnessing mindsets and healing bath trauma for an empowered subsequent bath. Since 2016, she has delved deeply into the adverse biological effects of electromagnetic radiation, EMR, emitted from mobile, wireless and electric devices, having experienced some herself. With little ones most at risk, it is an inconvenient truth which she feels compelled to share in order to safeguard future generations both born and unborn. She welcomes an opportunity to support midwives in taking forward this conversation while skipping their spirit high. Rebecca trains in matrix bath with emotional freedom techniques, in transformational coaching with NLP, in yoga, in the ultimate nap, in the singing mama's choir facilitation amongst other areas. Welcome Rebecca, you can now take away the presentation. Thank you so much Catherine and thank you so much to everybody who's joining today and taking your precious time out for what I believe is a really urgent topic to start talking about. So, I, yeah, as Catherine said, after experiencing some adverse effects myself, predominantly I think from my smartphone, moving out of London to the country and then suffering from tinnitus and various things. And I started to delve into this topic and have been down a rabbit hole for the last two and a half years. And with, you don't know what you don't know, but once you do know it, you can't know it, and it comes with a certain responsibility that I feel compelled to share so when the this year started I thought, how can I make the biggest difference with what I what I've learned. And it came straight away, it's the talk to you to midwives, because you are, you are so brilliantly positioned to share this information and to make a really positive difference for a whole lifetime for that child by your, your seeing pregnant women as early as is in their pregnancy. So I set a goal and it's just kind of manifested to this. I apologize in advance if I ruin your day because it's not an easy topic to talk about without getting into overwhelm and feeling like you know a bit about it, but I do want to end with some really practical tips on and how you can drastically reduce your exposure up to 90% with the with what you have around you, regardless of what is in the environment. So, it's no mistake that this some clever people have come and called it the smart revolution because what's the opposite of smart. Anyone stupid, dumb. If you're dumb, you can't communicate. So it's a really clever, clever thing that we've all embraced. I want to look today at how and why to reduce the exposure to radiation from mobile wireless devices, especially during pregnancy and early child development. So we'll put this in context a little bit looking at the, the, well, safety inverted commas, the exposure guidelines, why specifically prenatal and exposure is of such concern. It extends the problem with all the many proliferation of devices that we are embracing today and measures to reduce exposure and then I'd really like to open it up to a conversation on how you could take this information forward in your life and your practice. So, without further ado, we're living through an electronic technological revolution, the pace of which is unprecedented. And we have a love affair with mobile phones, computers, smart technology, it's fun, it's convenient, and it's addictive. We all have these devices, even our children, and even they become increasingly dependent on them, but at what cost. There's a study showing low economic families in America where 75% of four year olds had their own phone and the one year olds, I think it was something like 97%, it used a phone either with or without assistance at one. So this is a massive problem. That's on a daily basis, by the way. So people are beginning to voice concerns around the time that children spend on screens. And the conversations I hear are about the behavioral privacy and safeguarding issues that arise from that. Parents, I think, are feeling increasingly conflicted when navigating children and screen time. It's a problem that, you know, as I grew up, none of us existed. So my parents did not have to navigate that territory as a parent. So those conversations are being had, but few people are discussing or even aware of the adverse biological effects from the radiation emitted by all these devices. Both the electromagnetic fields, abbreviated to EMS, and radio frequencies, abbreviated to RFs, which are microwaves on which they all function. And nobody's having this conversation. So you might rightly assume that mobiles called as phones, cell towers, Wi-Fi, smart everything, they're proliferating, that's a given, that they must be safe. They must have been tested rigorously or this wouldn't have happened. So we don't need to, you know, question it. It would be right to think that our authorities must be looking out for us if this is happening. However, exposure guidelines have been determined by these organizations who represent and oversee the telecommunications and electronics industry themselves. So they have vested interests in us getting addicted to and buying these gadgets. And with guidelines set with not one person who has any understanding of the biology involved, the electronic engineers and so on. As our mobile phones have doubled in power since the guidelines were set and Wi-Fi mobile coverage extended globally, guidelines still date back to the 1990s. So this letter, and I know it's hard to see on my screen, but I'm going to try to read out the relevant bits. This letter is from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002, responding to a query about the exposure levels. And it says that they were adopted by the FCC, that's the Federal Communications Commission in 1996. The guidelines are recommended by the EPA with certain reservations in 1993. So here we are in 2019, almost to check myself on that. And we are still reliant on information that was determined in 1993. They were designed to protect against injury caused by acute exposure that result in tissue heating, so that the heating up of your body or electric shock and burn. They are only thermally based and they do not apply to chronic non-fermal exposure situations, which is what we're basically exposed to today. The generalisation by many that the guidelines protect human beings from harm by any or all mechanisms is not justified. So let's look at how the phones were tested. And when I'm talking about phones, this is still the radio frequencies that the wireless routers emit and mobile cell towers and everything else. So this is what it's based on. This is Sam. Sam is a plastic model of a head filled with some liquid and he's 90% bigger than most users. He's based on the top 10% of military guys in 1989. The tests were done measuring only the specific absorption rates. So how these radio frequency, the microwaves are absorbed into this fake head. They were looking at the heating effect only the heating up of tissues by one kilogram by one degree. Get this for six minutes and the phones were at a distance not touching the body. If you go into the settings in your in your phones, very deep. You will find that every single phone will recommend that it would be at least five to 25 millimeter distance from your body that you're supposed to handle the device. Why they're bringing up wireless headphones. I really don't know. And they were tested for a single source only one exposure. This is what they're based on. They don't account for normal thermal of non thermal effects sorry and thousands of peer reviewed published studies indicating biological changes and have done longer for phones even the mobiles even came out. They don't look at body contact exposure. They didn't look at peak exposure so so these were averaged to bring the readings down. So what you have is peaks and troughs very, very high intensities and fast rates and they are averaging those exposures but from the biological perspective those peaks are what is bombarding the cells. They are relevant they matter. They didn't look a chronicle long term exposure which is basically, you know, it's not what they weren't relevant tool to how we're using our devices and and how we're layering them up with the cumulative effects and the multiple sources all day and night. And the only thing that they looked at their the guidelines for 30 minutes exposures. They certainly don't take into account small head size of children and their unborn child with the rates being so much smaller than Sam. And they didn't look at the electrical properties and the different densities of tissues in the brain that would affect absorption and it's been shown that in live brains. The rising brain tumors that we're getting that you can get hotspots. So the, if you are to look at the SAR rating, the specific absorption rate for a 10 year old it's been shown that 153% higher than the Sam model. And children can absorb twice the amount of microwave radiation into their brain than adults can and 10 times the amount into the bone marrow of their skull bone marrow being where blood cells are made. Surprisingly, you might be surprised by this that most phones will exceed even the IC and IRP and FCC standards. The European standards, which is what the WHO want us all to adopt that lovely language to harmonize international standards. And it's actually, you can see 11, it'll be 11 times that they're a lot lower than the FCC standards. Okay, so the proliferation of mobile masks or cell towers is undisputed, so given right so with different frequency bandwidths used for each new generation mobile technology each time we bring out new generation we're just adding on. So our radio frequency environmental exposure has increased massively over the last 25 years, which is frankly nothing in the context of human evolution is it so let's have a look. This is the 2G back in 1996 25 years ago worldwide perspective 10 years later 3G 10 years later 4G in 2016. And now, compared to 201010 hour more than we're now looking with 5G that they'll be putting over 13 million in the US alone will be 17 million globally and more by 2025. Who knows what that will look like that will also involve many satellites in space. This is the guy who chaired the FCC at the time that the first, the first phone studies were done when when lawsuits started happening in the 90s. He buried the evidence discredited to the scientists who I've met and this is him announcing press conference about 5G it's a video his words are interesting. So he confirms that for 5G there has been no testing no standards anything goes his words if anyone tells you what 5G is really about run the other way. He's interested in raising billions of dollars and it will require a massive deployment of towers. So personally I don't find him somebody who I would want to trust with my children's health. In the same 25 years we've seen a massive rise in chronic conditions and multiple chronic conditions and not going to read them all but they are food and fertility and miscarriage. Yeah, and so one of three adults worldwide was a chronic condition nearly half the population in America children have a chronic health condition which would rise to over half. They can over weight obesity or being risked with mental disease, which is massively linked to this topic. So some conditions associated with electromagnetic radiation. I wonder it just pop in the chat if you want. Yeah, does anybody recognize any of these I've certainly experienced some of them. And quite alarming the DNA damage I'd also be really curious to ask midwives what your observational experiences of any increase in birth defects I haven't dealt into that specifically it would be a really interesting line of enquiries. So just to pick out autism just as one to CD the exponential increase here this is from 1975 to 2009. And it ends in one in 110 in America. It's currently 150 and rising. And if you can compare that with the exponential increase in the wireless proliferation in America you can see how clearly it correlates. So, we've got autism, the fastest growing disability in the US fivefold increase in the 90s, which is when the mobile technology really took off in the UK. Dr. Klinghart is a really pioneer of his field with regards to treating chronic illness and acknowledging the connection between electromagnetic radiation and these diseases. So, he points out that these were not in the doctors education when he qualified in 1972 these chronic things didn't exist then, but it's what most doctors are having to deal with now. And I strongly recommend if I just go back, if you do have good internet to look up this video, it's a really good interview the health crisis of our time on YouTube. He basically correlate he can predict the rate of autism, depending on what exposure levels were found in the bedroom of the mother when she was pregnant. Just quite interesting. So, although correlation doesn't equate to cause thousands of studies by those that have studied the effects of electromagnetic radiation biology show adverse effects at the non thermal levels. So, this IAC eventually acknowledged that the extremely low frequency and radio frequency radiation are possible human carcinogens and those that were many that were present at that decision making actually now say that it should be a group one carcinogenic human carcinogenic smoking and asbestos when they looked at all this research, the same research that was presented. So, an alarming statistic on brain cancers in, in children, if, yeah, if that were my child, I would not be wanting better standards. Let's put it that way. Thousands of here of these studies show a host of effects. Let's have a look at them. So this report that was published in 1971 and re published in 1972. The Naval Medical Research Institute pulling together 2300 studies of military testing. Because basically the radio frequencies, they were micro radiation was developed in the Cold War for as a stealth weapon in microwave warfare. So this is the history of it all. And obviously the military are interested in testing repeat replicable things. I'm just going to whiz through this but pick out some things because it's quite long. So we have older sensitivity to drug stimuli, altered sex ratio of birth, decreased fertility, going to sterility. We'll touch on that a bit later. Altered menstrual activity. I know the children in the girls are getting their periods earlier and earlier altered fetal development, decreased lactation and nursing mothers. What else have we got? Dehydration in even death. Central nervous systems headache. This is from the lack of oxygen because of the red blood cells coming together. Insomnia, restlessness, cranial nerve disorders, seizures and convulsions relevant to the increase in epilepsy. We're seeing neuro vegetative disorders, fatigue, synapses of the vagus nerve being just effects on locomotor nerves. So we have re-increase in Parkinson's and MS going on. Impotence anxiety, lack of concentration, dizziness, hallucination, sleepiness, insomnia, irritability, decreased appetite if you're particularly close to a mobile master's can happen. Loss of memory, tremors of the hands. I've experienced that. This is not something that you want with Wi-Fi in schools, is it? It's not exactly helpful to learning. Blood disorders affecting white and red blood cells and bone marrow, cholesterol, even stroke, changes in all sorts of things here. Canary links to diabetes with increased blood sugars, loss of appetite again with anorexia, digestive problems. We're seeing a massive rise in IVS and so on. Genetic and chromosomal changes. So this is a pertinent to midwives understanding. Chromosome aberrations, mutations, mongolism. Interestingly, when we think of all that's going on currently with the climate change, oh Sarah, I'm sorry, I will try and get to the things that we can do to mitigate this. I just need to demonstrate the harm first. But orientation of animals, birds, fish, this has an impact on the climate too. Okay, if you have fillings, the convenience of barking, all sorts of things here and changes in circadian rhythm is important. So basically, those setting the standards have argued that there are inconsistencies in the research for the non-thermal levels because of all these wide ranges. But if you understand that we are human beings that react differently, we're electrical beings, our cells have electricity as strong as light involves in them. Dr. Martin Paul's groundbreaking work in 2013 showed that even at extremely low levels of non-thermal microwave frequencies, it can activate the cells voltage gated calcium channels, which is basically affecting the calcium flow into the cell. And with these eight pathophysiological effects, even to neurological damage, hormone disruption, oxidative stress, which is precursor to cancer, DNA breaks, germline mutations, apoptosis and fertility cancer. So, this is a sum up from his, and the notes I've taken from his presentation, lowered fertility being one of the alarming things here. And just pick out that sperm counts in technologically advanced countries have dropped by more than one. Technologically advanced countries. Technologically advanced countries. And reproduction has dropped well below replacing levels in all of them, except for one. We need to start talking about this and having conversations. Neurological effects, as we've already looked at, he confirms those send you the DNA damage, single and double DNA breaks, cell death, oxidative stress, endocrine hormone disruptions. He will say that this intracellular calcium is what's causing everything else that explains why such diversity. And this is a real biggie that we need to be looking at for increased antibiotic resistance. Strong evidence to show cardiac effects early onset Alzheimer's and other dementias. There's type three Alzheimer's is now this is this is found in early in younger and younger people and even digital dementia and teenagers from environmental exposure. Not only not only not only electromagnetic radiation, but that is one of them also chemical explosions. So on and ADM ADHD and autism from the late prenatal and interpersonal exposures. So let's look at those because that's what we're here for. So why are children more susceptible? Basically, they're still developing brain, body, central nervous system. They're still cells are dividing and differentiating faster than adults. They're a critical vulnerable period windows of development that can have the profoundly affected by environmental exposures. The myelin sheath that protects their nerves is not yet fully developed. It's shown that if myelin is damaged, these impulses slow down. And I certainly see this in some young people. It's almost like they haven't been to bed for two days with the thought processes that are just going so slowly. And it can lead to things like MS. As we've already said, they're so much smaller than the SAM model. And so penetration can be this much deeper. It's a simulated model, but it shows that the radiation in a five year old baby with a mobile phone to the ear can penetrate on his whole head. They have a great water content in their tissues. Bone density in bone marrow is particularly affected immune system if they're immature already. And this radiation decreases their red and white blood cells and the oxidized platelets. The electromagnetic radiation also targets the blood brain barrier and the intestinal lining of creating, making it less, sorry, more permeable. Which is why with the intestine, you can get IVS and that links to allergies because food stuffs are getting into the system with the blood brain barrier. You've got obviously leakage of chemicals and heavy metals and things going into the brain. It really shouldn't that links in with the Alzheimer's and dementia that's going on. The stem cells are differentiating by in their very nature so that I'm differentiated. I mean, higher density is more active. So and they have been shown to be especially susceptible, but this should be what we should be looking at in terms of the cancer research that the levels that apply to stem cells. And as we've said, they are the first generation or ongoing generations that are going to be exposed from conception to grave, or even pre-conception if you look at the quality of sperm and eggs. So pulled out some studies and on prenatal exposures and the effects on fetuses and newborns. So they've shown hyperactivity, impaired memory, behavioral changes, increases in behavioral problems, hyperactivity again, gene expression in embryonic stem cells, and stem cells, asthma even. So it's not only about really your frequencies that is relevant to this. I'm just throwing this in about the magnetic exposures as well. There was a study of five laptops that showed these huge exposures that exceeded even the IC and RPA safety limits which we know to be higher than we would like. So a laptop is really not to be used on a lap. So even with the Wi-Fi that might be emitting from the screen, this is specifically about the magnetic radiation coming from the laptop itself. What is key to understanding all of this is that the environment influences the expression of the DNA of the cell basically. It affects the cell membrane and in very simple terms, but it reduces nutrients in and toxins out as well as the VGCCs that were mentioned earlier. But basically the cell membrane has antenna that is reading the environment and then translating that into biological expression. We've seen increases in miscarriage associated with magnetic fields. So there's a thing about reducing MRIs that the limits don't protect the fetus basically. And incubators, I thought that might be relevant to you, have been shown to have high EMS, that's electromagnetic fields, which can interfere with the sympathetic nervous system and alter heart rate variability and inhibit melatonin. How we do on time, Catherine, we need to be whizzing on. But Earthling has been shown in a study to help new bonds and incubators. And we need to be thinking about how to design incubators that they can be safer for the child in terms of electromagnetic radiation. So these are some solutions here. And I personally, I don't understand why kangaroo care isn't more used. There is so much evidence there to show that that is a really lovely effective way of looking after. So even the IEEE that are the, I think I've got it right, the Institute of Electronic Engineers, that's not quite right, but anyway, that they inform the standards that the FCC adopted in America. And even though you've shown biological effects and what they say here, that the devices that the, sorry, the electromagnetic compatibility of the interference of the fields from one device with another. Human health can be indirectly affected by the electromagnetic interference with the function of medical devices, including hospital equipment and pacemakers. So I thought that was relevant to the newborns and the incubators. I don't need to spend too much on the extent to the problem, but you might be surprised by, thank you, Chris, for putting in the comments about the IEEE. I never cease to surprise me that more and more of these things come out, like the wireless headphones and Fitbits. So there are lots of wearables now, even hearing aids can be wireless now, not on the NHS in the UK, but privately you can get them. So some of these are radio frequencies that are Wi-Fi emitting, smart phones obviously, cordless, cordless tech phone, I need to just touch on this, because this is one of the worst offenders in your home. And I strongly advise a corded phone. These are sending pulses from the base station of the cordless phone, day and night, as long as they're plugged in, and they are incredibly powerful. They are a big emitter. The closer you are to a Wi-Fi router, the basically distances your friend, okay. I'm doing home assistance now, more and more. It's a fun thing to be able to just speak to the air and get your music turned on. Modern cars, this is a surprising one to me that now that a lot of modern cars have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth actually in there and can be quite hard. I'm off in all, but in some you can on the dashboards, you have to go into settings and disable again. So home appliances, I'm just going to touch on this. It's not the radio frequencies, but basically you would not want to be sleeping with your head the other side of a wall to the back of the fridge. That would be another for the magnetic fields. Induction hops again, magnetic fields. With all these increases in exposures, we're seeing a rise in what is called electrosensitivity or electrohypersensitivity. So as midwives, I just fling this out there because this is something just to be aware of that this is people who are, we're biology, everyone is affected in our biology by what's in the environment. Some people are literally feeling the effects. Some people are so sensitive that they'll know if someone has their mobile phone on. Some can even detect whether it's on flight mode or if it's still actually switched on. We need to just bear this in mind because with 5G coming out and smart meters, sorry, that wasn't in the other slide, but that's a massive offender in the home. This is the digital utility meter versus the analog version. That's functioning on wireless technology. We are just going to carry on seeing increases in electrosensitivity. So I'm just going to come back to that slide, but the big common things that parents wanting to do the best by their children are the babies born. We've got wireless baby monitors and even wireless smart in inverted commas smart socks that you can put on your baby to monitor heart rate and everything. And it speaks to your father's gadget to your phone that you can have by your bedside so you don't have to get up in the night. But let's just look, this is like putting a mobile phone mask near your child. So the digital baby monitor one meter from the baby to up to two volts per meter in exposure. Let's look at the mobile phone mask at 150 the same. And the debt cordless phone. Next to the head up to 80 it's massive exposures mobile phone. And the Wi-Fi router again up to two volts per meter this is source for power watch. So you really need to be telling your ladies not to not do wireless. And these gadgets that can actually interfere with the heart rate that makes no sense. And I'm just going to playing out there the synergistic effects. And then I want to wrap up. But heavy metal toxicity if you in your child's got braces in a Wi-Fi environment or if you've got mercury amalgams. This is also relevant to the vaccine schedule. If there is a heavy metals in the vaccines or so on. Multiple chemical sensitivity. This is a good idea to play the role here. EMS shown to increase moles massively. I think as for Gilles, which is the black one and co-infections. These all have a synergistic effect with EMS. And looking ahead, what's around the corner we already in the UK piloting in Cumbura and Cornwall 5G and it's being rolled out in America. This is millimeter wave technology. It's also being used in body scanners in certain airports. It has not had a single test for safety. So let's just briefly touch on what you can do to minimise. Basically, thank you Catherine. Reduce exposure, raise resilience. This is my motto. Distance is your friend. There are near fields, far fields and you want to just keep the stuff as far away from you as possible and for a small duration as possible. And the most important environment to protect is your sleeping environment. When I say your, I mean, I want to be speaking for the baby as well. It's not necessarily just nighttime. Simple ways to reduce your exposure. I wish I had more time on this, but I'm really happy to take this conversation on if you want to email me and I can do more on this because this is, it's important that we can take control of certain things. I mean, basically, if you can replace anything wireless corded that goes for your internet connection for your court, your phone. If you haven't learned mine still is a net cabling computers opting out of Wi-Fi. So I don't know in other parts of the world, but in the UK, BT and Virgin will have public Wi-Fi attached to your router as well as the one providing you in the home. So even if you cable your computer, I made this mistake, you can still have the public Wi-Fi emitting so that people can be wandering past your house, still watching the streaming videos. So unless you opt out of that, your router will still be emitting Wi-Fi. Laptops are not for lapse, create distance. I want to mention BellyArma.com, I think it is, that there are products that you can shield your pregnant bellies with blankets and you can also get devices that shield underneath your laptop computer if you have it on a desk. Good question about the Doppler. I can't go into that now, but I can't remember the lady who's done a lot of work on that now, my mind's gone blank. Thanks Chris. Okay. And yeah, there's just a thing about self care basically increasing your resilience to this detoxifying your body so that it is more resilient. If you go to EHtrust, have I got that right? I've got the website in the resources list. This is about the most comprehensive tips list that I found on how to reduce your exposure to the common things in your home. So they are a fantastic resource. There are lots of printables in all sorts of formats, postcards, posters that you could be taking into your practice and disseminating to women. Okay, so just to sum up the existing public safety. This is from the By Initiative Report 2012, which is a really excellent resource to go to. The guidelines are not protecting the embryo, fetus, neonation, very young child, not protecting us, but they're certainly not protecting them. Common sense measures to limit both extremely low frequency EMS and radio frequency EMS in this population is needed, especially with respect to incubators and education of the pregnant mother with respect to laptops, mobile phones and other sources. So this is where you come in and I'm really sorry that I haven't managed to give you more time on the on the safety tips or for this conversation. But if we've got five minutes, we'd like to open it up to a conversation about how can you take this forward. My take on this is that it's quite, it can be quite frightening topic. The last thing you want to do is spread alarm, fear can generate its own consequences. But we need to start to sow seeds and start to have conversations because believe me, the people that who have vested interest in us continuing down this road. They are working 24 seven in a day night to bring out more and more things that we want to buy buy buy. And we already have children who don't know the difference between internet and Wi-Fi, the two are not synonymous. You can have internet without Wi-Fi through cables. So I invite you to get curious, start observing, conduct your own research. And I would really love it if at the check in appointment when women first come to you that along with guidance on don't smoke, don't drink, bloody, bloody, eat more of this and less of that, that we need to be disseminating free resources to women on this. Because this is how you're going to make the most difference for the next generation. You're going to protect the child during pregnancy or at least try. And then that will will start to educate the parent in terms of what they bring in while that child is free. It's no mistake that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not allow their children to use iPads and iPhones and so on. My website is not live at the moment, but this is how you can contact me Rebecca at SymptonicBirth.com. And I would really welcome taking forward this conversation if anybody wants to help to implement changes in your work environment, then I'm here to help. Okay, thank you so much.