Strengths and Limitations
The retrospective design of this study raises the possibility of biases
inherent to such investigations. Therefore, we cannot exclude the
possibility that additional unknown factors could explain the
differences observed between the groups. Moreover, while some women were
a surgical mask, others prefer to wear N-95 mask or cloth. Our study did
not account for this variation. Moreover, our results may have been
masked by patients who spent shorter time periods wearing a mask during
the day, or the short period of time evaluated after wearing a mask was
obligatory. Finally, the conduct of the study in a single tertiary care
center may limit the generalizability of the results. On the other hand,
the main strengths of our study include its relatively large cohort of
patients and the meticulous data collection on a large set of variables.