My friend sometimes uses her laptop on her belly. Is that a bad idea?

Radiation is everywhere and you really need a major exposure to have any side effect. The baby is safe and you can’t get sterile by having it on your lap either.

I have never heard anything bad about doing it…...

The idea that using a laptop on your lap causes sterility is linked to the heat effecting sperm in men. Realistically while too much heat may reduce quality of the sperm it is unlikely to cause infertility.

I hate this concept that radiation is a terrible thing, humans are radioactive themselves, besides, people are exposed to more radiation flying long-distance in an aeroplane or sunbathing in a year than you are exposed to in an X-Ray Machine, so I doubt radiation is something to be concerned about. Rant aside, Laptops do produce a lot of heat, so if heat is a factor in getting pregnant then that would have an effect, the internets seem to think that this is only an issue for the man, as Lightlyseared has already said, heat will reduce a man’s sperm count and your chances for getting pregnant are reduced…

I don’t have any proof or research to back me up but from personal experience…I’ve been using a laptop (in my lap or on my belly) for three years and had no trouble getting pregnant (happened the first week of trying). I would suggest that if she’s worried about it, just stop putting it on her belly and start using it at a table. Or place it on the couch next to her. Better safe than sorry.

Oh I will add that I had to stop putting it on my belly while pregnant because the baby hated it. He’ll kick the hell out of the laptop if it comes anywhere near the belly!

From what I’ve read, the danger is in burning your skin and/or overheating your internal organs. I’ve never heard anything about radiation, just the excessive heat generated by laptops not being so good for whatever body area you set them on. Guys who set laptops on their lap run the risk of overheating their testicles, thereby reducing sperm count.

You can buy cooling pads and such to place in between your stomach/body part and the laptop. I am considering this for mine… it just gets so damn hot, it’s unbearable.

Sounds really uncomfortable though doesn’t it.

Well, certain types of radiation (not all radiation – heat and light are radiation, for example) is linked to genetic mutation, and the sooner a mutation occurs during development of a new creature, the more effect it has since the mutation gets reproduced to cells that develop later. Irradiated ovaries would tend to be a bad thing for future children, it seems to me, unless you luck out and get a super-hero, but the odds against that are really low.

I think laptops are unlikely to be at all dangerous as radiation sources even to ovaries, though. Mmm, though focussed wireless antennae can be a risk, I think.