The verdict is in. Sorry mask-enforcer science-deniers. Time.To.Lift.Restrictions.That.Harm.Children.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/babies-born-pandemic-slight-developmental-lag-study-finds-rcna10872

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I challenge any pediatrician to say that keeping your mouth covered while speaking to a baby or toddler might not have any speech development consequences.
However, one may certainly debate exactly how severe the consequences will be, dependent on endless individual circumstances.

Then, if you are so concerned, don't send your kids to child care and keep them home and talk to them all day.

Wrong answer. Withdrawing our kids doesn’t fix the problem. Some of us may be privileged in that we can afford to pull our kids out temporarily or permanently, but change is achieved when people instead stay where they are and advocate to make the system better for all.

Not to mention - I like my job and am not quitting

This!!! Daycare parents have to be vocal about what’s not working in order to make it better. The daycare-do-or-die attitude has to stop!

Anonymous wrote:I spoke with an infant-toddler caregiver recently about this (I don’t have any children that young, so no dog in this fight). She said they have to mask all day around the babies and that it is surprisingly difficult to soothe them wearing a mask. She said that the crying babies aren’t seeing their caregiver‘s smile or warmth and affection, and it takes them longer to stop crying. This is a totally foreseeable consequence of mask-wearing around infants and toddlers. They get their social cues largely from their caregiver‘s face, of course it will be confusing and traumatic to never see their caregiver smile. I‘m really surprised parents haven’t been more vocal about this in their daycares, but I assume they prefer mask-wearing than not.

+1. It’s got to take a toll on the babies and young toddlers.

Anonymous wrote:If you think masking/child care is the issue, then consider other child care options like having a nanny or work with them more at home when you/they aren't masked.

OP here. I can’t tell if you are trying to be helpful. Do you or anyone else have specific exercises or online resources to recommend in terms of “work with them more at home” or is it just to read a lot and narrate everything, because that is basic parenting and we are doing that.

He mimics inflection (for instance, here you go! or where’s Larlo?) and can carry the ABC tune pretty decently, but almost exclusively only has words for mama.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I challenge any pediatrician to say that keeping your mouth covered while speaking to a baby or toddler might not have any speech development consequences.
However, one may certainly debate exactly how severe the consequences will be, dependent on endless individual circumstances.

Then, if you are so concerned, don't send your kids to child care and keep them home and talk to them all day.

Wrong answer. Withdrawing our kids doesn’t fix the problem. Some of us may be privileged in that we can afford to pull our kids out temporarily or permanently, but change is achieved when people instead stay where they are and advocate to make the system better for all.

Not to mention - I like my job and am not quitting

Anonymous wrote:I challenge any pediatrician to say that keeping your mouth covered while speaking to a baby or toddler might not have any speech development consequences.
However, one may certainly debate exactly how severe the consequences will be, dependent on endless individual circumstances.

Then, if you are so concerned, don't send your kids to child care and keep them home and talk to them all day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely has to do with masking in infant rooms in daycare! How could it not? Our babies spent 8 hours a day not seeing mouths form words or expressions.

Yes, my toddler is being evaluated for speech delays. I was told he’d be delayed and he is.

+1. Babies/toddlers imitate the people around them. How can they imitate speech if they can't see someone's lips moving?

Why isn’t every single baby currently in daycare delayed for speech then?

This thread is literally going in circles. If the threshold for negative effects is that it has to negatively affect 100% of people, then by that logic we should never have cared about covid at all because the vast majority of people survive it. Right?

Then you're saying that you don't know that masks definitively cause delays, right? In any case, are your babies in a masked caregiver setting 24/7?

What are you, a fascist overlord? Parents have the right to determine what’s best for their children. After nearly two years of masks, there’s plenty of anecdotal and yes statistical data that should allow them that decision. Go back to ruling China or something.

Keep your kids at home and look after them yourself if you’re that concerned, instead of farming them off on low-paid workers.

I spoke with an infant-toddler caregiver recently about this (I don’t have any children that young, so no dog in this fight). She said they have to mask all day around the babies and that it is surprisingly difficult to soothe them wearing a mask. She said that the crying babies aren’t seeing their caregiver‘s smile or warmth and affection, and it takes them longer to stop crying. This is a totally foreseeable consequence of mask-wearing around infants and toddlers. They get their social cues largely from their caregiver‘s face, of course it will be confusing and traumatic to never see their caregiver smile. I‘m really surprised parents haven’t been more vocal about this in their daycares, but I assume they prefer mask-wearing than not.

If you think masking/child care is the issue, then consider other child care options like having a nanny or work with them more at home when you/they aren't masked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg stop the craziness. Parents have a right to send their kids to a place that encourages development. We know for a fact based on data that masks can inhibit speech development, and have for thousands of toddlers. If some parents are more concerned about COVID, then sure you have a right to send your kids to a place that masks. But there is zero - ZERO - evidence that cloth masks prevent COVID. You don’t get to mandate away other parents’ rights without citing concrete scientific data and studies. You mandate folks are losing on this issue and your unscientific grasp on society is loosening, causing you to have a freaking panic attack, I guess. Get help.

What you're saying is not accurate. Yes, n95 is better but we do know even cloth masks have helped.

Results The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, with the rate of ILI statistically significantly higher in the cloth mask arm (relative risk (RR)=13.00, 95% CI 1.69 to 100.07) compared with the medical mask arm. Cloth masks also had significantly higher rates of ILI compared with the control arm. An analysis by mask use showed ILI (RR=6.64, 95% CI 1.45 to 28.65) and laboratory-confirmed virus (RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.94) were significantly higher in the cloth masks group compared with the medical masks group. Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% and medical masks 44%.

Conclusions This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

Anything short of a n95 is theatre. What do they wear in the ICU?

I challenge any pediatrician to say that keeping your mouth covered while speaking to a baby or toddler might not have any speech development consequences.
However, one may certainly debate exactly how severe the consequences will be, dependent on endless individual circumstances.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely has to do with masking in infant rooms in daycare! How could it not? Our babies spent 8 hours a day not seeing mouths form words or expressions.

Yes, my toddler is being evaluated for speech delays. I was told he’d be delayed and he is.

+1. Babies/toddlers imitate the people around them. How can they imitate speech if they can't see someone's lips moving?

Why isn’t every single baby currently in daycare delayed for speech then?

This thread is literally going in circles. If the threshold for negative effects is that it has to negatively affect 100% of people, then by that logic we should never have cared about covid at all because the vast majority of people survive it. Right?

Then you're saying that you don't know that masks definitively cause delays, right? In any case, are your babies in a masked caregiver setting 24/7?

OP here. I tried to look around to see if there were any studies on this question enrolling. Regardless of how someone feels about caregiver masking and to what degree it affects speech development, surely this is research-worthy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely has to do with masking in infant rooms in daycare! How could it not? Our babies spent 8 hours a day not seeing mouths form words or expressions.

Yes, my toddler is being evaluated for speech delays. I was told he’d be delayed and he is.

+1. Babies/toddlers imitate the people around them. How can they imitate speech if they can't see someone's lips moving?

Why isn’t every single baby currently in daycare delayed for speech then?

This thread is literally going in circles. If the threshold for negative effects is that it has to negatively affect 100% of people, then by that logic we should never have cared about covid at all because the vast majority of people survive it. Right?

Then you're saying that you don't know that masks definitively cause delays, right? In any case, are your babies in a masked caregiver setting 24/7?

What are you, a fascist overlord? Parents have the right to determine what’s best for their children. After nearly two years of masks, there’s plenty of anecdotal and yes statistical data that should allow them that decision. Go back to ruling China or something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

I don’t really think it’s fair to declare that this has nothing to do with covid. We just don’t know. Kids are isolated and constantly around masked people. Of course this could result in speech delay. To suggest otherwise is just ignoring one possible cause.

+1 why do people make these proclamations about topics they know nothing about? Plenty of anecdotal evidence of an uptick in speech delays. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

There is a huge body of research that kids born during times of social disruption often experience delays; why a global pandemic should be different is beyond me. The mask thing makes no sense as an explanation, because children born during the pandemic are all babies or young toddlers, and aren't in school (so no masked teachers) and presumably spend most, or at least plenty, of their time at home with their families, who are not masked.

Um, babies and young toddlers spend a considerable amount of their waking hours in daycare. Where people are required to wear masks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely has to do with masking in infant rooms in daycare! How could it not? Our babies spent 8 hours a day not seeing mouths form words or expressions.

Yes, my toddler is being evaluated for speech delays. I was told he’d be delayed and he is.

+1. Babies/toddlers imitate the people around them. How can they imitate speech if they can't see someone's lips moving?

Why isn’t every single baby currently in daycare delayed for speech then?

This thread is literally going in circles. If the threshold for negative effects is that it has to negatively affect 100% of people, then by that logic we should never have cared about covid at all because the vast majority of people survive it. Right?

Then you're saying that you don't know that masks definitively cause delays, right? In any case, are your babies in a masked caregiver setting 24/7?