Wearing Masks Can Increase The Risk Of Still Births

Plus testicular toxicity

Another study has raised concerns about the potential risks associated with prolonged mask-wearing, particularly in vulnerable populations such as pregnant women, children, and adolescents. Weird how none of these studies came out when mask mandates were in force.

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

The German study conducted by Kai Kisielinski et al. suggests that prolonged mask-wearing may lead to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) exposure, which could have toxic effects on human health. They say fresh air has around 0.04% CO2 while wearing masks for more than 5 minutes can lead to chronic exposure of CO2 of 1.41% to 3.2% of inhaled air.

Some of the potential risks identified in animal studies included:

• Fetal defects and still births

  • Just 0.5% carbon dioxide for a few minutes to an hour per day is capable of inducing stillbirths and birth defects in guinea pigs.

  • The US Navy became aware of this level as it is often exceeded on submarines so they conducted their own experiments with rats. A 3% CO2 toxicity was observed in pregnant dams. After this experiment the Navy set exposure limits for female crew at 0.8% CO2.

• Neurotoxicity

  • Pregnant rats with an exposure of 0.3% CO2 gave birth to pups with reduced spatial learning and memory. This was attributed to damaged neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus. This damage is irreversible and affects mental health in the long term.

  • At 0.1% CO2 the pups demonstrated increased anxiety which was more pronounced at 0.3%.

  • It also caused oxidative stress causing DNA fragmentation. This causes mitochondrial damage and ultimately cell death.

  • Another study exposed adolescent mice to 0.3% CO2 24 hours a day for 7 weeks. Compared with the control group, the rats were unable to learn at the same rate and were left with an irreversible loss of neurons.

• Male reproductive toxicity

  • Adolescent rats exposed to 2.5% CO2 for 4 hours showed signs of diminished fertility.

  • There was marked damage to testes function.

The authors note that small laboratory animals have been evolutionary adapted to living in burrows and caves and are therefore limited as indicators for CO2 since they are much less sensitive to it than humans. But there are very few human studies so animal studies are all we have.

Furthermore, the studies are not always representative of real-world settings where masks can be worn all day in some cases.

Another thing that wasn’t looked at is that the CO2 content of the breathing air behind the mask may also lead to a displacement of oxygen. This can additionally lead to other complications such as spinal malformations due to hypoxia.

They conclude that “there is circumstantial evidence that popular mask use may be related to current observations of a significant rise of 28% to 33% in stillbirths worldwide and a reduced verbal, motor, and overall cognitive performance of two full standard deviations in scores in children born during the pandemic”.