(FORTUNE Magazine) – While it's far from proven that electromagnetic fields are harmful, a little caution can't hurt. In addition to power lines and wiring, many devices around your home or office produce fields when they are turned on, including video display terminals (VDTs) and almost anything with an electric motor -- air conditioners, coffee grinders, computer printers, copiers, clocks, dishwashers, electric razors, and hair dryers. Evidence for possible harmful % effects is stronger for children than for adults, probably because growing tissue is more vulnerable. The strength -- and presumably the danger -- of a field diminishes dramatically with distance: Four feet from the source, it's only one-sixteenth as powerful as it is one foot away. Even a small space between your body and an emitting device greatly reduces your exposure. Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University, who developed the concept of ''prudent avoidance,'' suggests you analyze where you spend most of your time. Try to stay several feet from any source of a field. For maximum prudence, you can measure the fields around wiring or appliances with a gaussmeter. These generally cost more than $100 and can be hard to find. (For a list of manufacturers, send a self-addressed stamped envelope and $1 to Microwave News, P.O. Box 1799, Grand Central Station, New York, New York 10163.) A few ways that a growing number of experts say you can limit exposure:

-- Opt if you can for a cellular phone that has the transmitter separate from the handset, as car phones do.

-- Don't work with your head close to a fluorescent or halogen desk lamp.

-- Don't work closer than arm's length from your VDT, or use laptop computers instead -- their liquid crystal display (LCD) screens emit negligible radiation. Don't lean back in your desk chair and put your head near the VDT screen behind you. Avoid the backs of VDTs, where fields are more intense.

-- If you use a wireless baby monitor, don't put the transmitter within five feet of the child.

-- Keep children five feet from TV screens.

-- Don't stand next to the dishwasher or microwave oven when it's running.

-- Check around your bed and make sure devices like clocks and air conditioners are at least three feet from your sleeping position.

-- Avoid electric razors -- and hand-held hair dryers too, or else buy the kind with the fan far from your head.

-- If you use an electric blanket, pick one of the newer low-intensity-field designs.