An anatomically realistic whole-body pregnant-woman model and specific absorption rates for pregnant-woman exposure to electromagnetic plane waves from 10 MHz to 2 GHz

Phys Med Biol. 2007 Nov 21;52(22):6731-45. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/52/22/012. Epub 2007 Oct 30.

Abstract

The numerical dosimetry of pregnant women is an important issue in electromagnetic-field safety. However, an anatomically realistic whole-body pregnant-woman model for electromagnetic dosimetry has not been developed. Therefore, we have developed a high-resolution whole-body model of pregnant women. A new fetus model including inherent tissues of pregnant women was constructed on the basis of abdominal magnetic resonance imaging data of a 26-week-pregnant woman. The whole-body pregnant-woman model was developed by combining the fetus model and a nonpregnant-woman model that was developed previously. The developed model consists of about 7 million cubical voxels of 2 mm size and is segmented into 56 tissues and organs. This pregnant-woman model is the first completely anatomically realistic voxel model that includes a realistic fetus model and enables a numerical simulation of electromagnetic dosimetry up to the gigahertz band. In this paper, we also present the basic specific absorption rate characteristics of the pregnant-woman model exposed to vertically and horizontally polarized electromagnetic waves from 10 MHz to 2 GHz.

MeSH terms

  • Female
  • Fetus / physiology
  • Humans
  • Models, Anatomic*
  • Pregnancy
  • Radiation Dosage
  • Radiation*
  • Whole-Body Counting / methods