Induced current density in the foetus of pregnant workers in high magnetic field environments

There are moves to limit by legislation the amount of electric and magnetic fields that workers and the general public are exposed to. In work locations near wiring, cables & equipment carrying high electric currents, there are situations in which the proposed magnetic field limits could be exceeded. Since the limits for the general public are more conservative than those for workers and since the foetus or a pregnant worker should be afforded the status of a member of the general public, it is important to assess a worst-case scenario for the purposes of a general code of practice. Three different magnetic field exposures are modelled, which include the worst case - the body of a pregnant woman at a smallest distance of 30 cm to the conductor. All computations were done by using Multiple Multipole Program (MMP), which is based on the Generalized Multipole Technique (GMT) from ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich, Switzerland. In a worst-case scenario the proposed basic restrictions would be exceeded slightly in both maternal and foetal tissue. With appropriate pre-placement assessment, these over-exposures can be avoided.