Pregnant Women Need Fear No Cell Phone Radiation: Belly Armor Is Here!

If requiring stores to label their cell phones with radiation-output levels wasn't enough, San Francisco has found a new way to revel in cell phone hysteria: Now one of its trendy maternity boutiques sells radiation-shielding maternity clothes. These clothes are specifically designed to shield their little unborn hipster babies from computer and cell phone radiation. Radiation-shielding maternity clothing has been popular in China for years, but a young company is now marketing its line of Belly Armor directly to San Francisco's expectant mothers. The clothing, which start at $59 for a T-shirt, is made by a company called RadiaShield, whose website encourages expectant mothers to "protect their child within" from the radiation of daily lives. Fact check: most of the radiation that a cell phone emits is actually a low-frequency, non-harmful type of radiation called non-ionizing radiation. It doesn't contain enough energy to remove electrons from an atom, unlike higher-energy, higher-frequency, known-to-be harmful radiations like x-rays and UV light. As our daily exposure to these non-ionizing radiations have increased with the advent of personal electronics, people have started to worry that this additional exposure may have health implications. Though many studies of non-ionizing radiation have shown it to be harmless (and in one strange study, possibly even beneficial), not all expectant mothers are reassured by these studies. Laura Riley, medical director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital, told TIME her point of view on the product: