New study warns pandemic lockdowns, mask mandates hindered babies’ development

A new study suggests that measures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic such as mask mandates and lockdowns have hindered the development of babies.

The study, posted in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, claims that compared to a historical cohort, babies born during lockdown have shown a deficit in social communication. It appears that the stringent precautions taken by state and federal governments across the globe led to babies of the pandemic cohort having “one definite and meaningful word (76.6% vs 89.3%), could point (83.8% vs 92.8%) or wave bye-bye (87.7% vs 94.4%) at 12-month assessment.”

Bans on visiting family members and friends drastically reduced the social interaction infants would typically have. Coupled with mandatory masking in schools and other public places drastically impacted infants’ ability to comprehend and reciprocate certain social cues. The researchers state masks impaired children’s ability to study facial expressions or to see mouths moving.

“In addition to social isolation, babies born during the pandemic have also had to overcome other, new developmental challenges,” the study, led by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, noted.

“Lockdown measures may have reduced the repertoire of language heard and the sight of unmasked faces speaking to [infants]. It may also have curtailed opportunities to encounter new items of interest, which might prompt pointing, and the frequency of social contacts to enable them to learn to wave bye-bye,” the paper reported. “[But] they were still more likely to be crawling… which might be because they were more likely to have spent more time at home on the ground rather than out of the home in cars and strollers.”

The study does stress that further studies with standardized testing will be required to validate their findings as theirs relies on parental reporting. They conclude optimistically, stating that children are resilient and hope that with an adjustment in guidelines and socialization that the deleterious effects of the past two years will be reversed in time.

Critically, this is just the latest of a litany of adversities children born during the pandemic have had to contend with. Potentially more concerning is that persistent masking and isolation may have had an effect weakening children’s immune systems, limiting their exposure to a variety of germs that would otherwise help them become more disease-resistant.

A retrospective report conducted by the CDC showed that levels of common cold viruses hit their highest-ever totals in children under 18 in August of 2021. Furthermore, the study taken across seven different wards across the nation showed that 700 children were hospitalized due to respiratory illness in August of last year. Over half of them tested positive for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). This was a record high ever recorded in the summer.

Meanwhile, members of the American Academy of Pediatrics have come under fire for attending a conference without masking.

Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco has called out the AAP’s hypocrisy, demanding the organization be dissolved. The doctor, a hematologist-oncologist and health researcher at university and a prominent medical writer, tweeted several photos of conference-goers smiling unmasked as they socialized freely.

The conference took place in Anaheim, California where hundreds of health officials from across the nation attended. The irony was not lost on Prasad who noted that it was the AAP that promoted strict masking guidelines for nearly all adolescents until very recently.

Prasad stated, ”This organization pushed masks on 2 year olds with no data, in defiance of UNICEF & WHO, while they were aware that masks impede interactions. Org should be dissolved.”

The mountain of contradictory actions from policymakers and officials continues to grow. The behavior of the attendants at the AAP’s conference is reminiscent of California governor Gavin Newsom dining at the French Laundry for his birthday at the height of lockdown in California, President Biden dining unmasked in a D.C. restaurant in 2021, or the several examples of Stacey Abrams, Jill Biden, and Kamala Harris all going unmasked amongst schoolchildren on separate occasions.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, while no longer supporting mandatory masking, still strongly encourages the masking of vaccinated and unvaccinated adults older than age 2.

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