Circumcision: What sparked my passion for the foreskin
Posted in Circumcision and tagged with Child Development, Circumcision, Motherhood on 04/27/2009 05:50 pm by Rachael
Since publishing my article Why today’s parents are saying no to circumcision, I have received a lot of supportive comments and emails. Along with several people asking what led to my awakening since my son is in fact circumcised.Â
I say awakening because that really is what happens–once you get what circumcision really is and what the procedure does to your newborn–there is no looking back. In my opinion there is no way you could put your baby through that kind of primitive torture; once you realize that torture is exactly what the US standard of circumcision is. And that my friends is what led my journey to the other side.
Sure, I knew that the procedure would be painful. I knew the healing process would be uncomfortable. But painful and uncomfortable are far from being appropriate adjectives to describe what our boys go through. I thought I would get my baby back, love him up and nurse him back to peace and tranquility.Â
The tranquility never came.
When the doctor came in to get my son I was in a state of euphoria–glowing, breastfeeding, and wanting to explode with love.  The doctor scoured at me, and asked why I was feeding him. I said because he wanted to keep nursing. He replied with “he is not supposed to be eating now” and something along the lines of “You need to stop,  that’s what motherhood is about.” What?
So I allowed my son to be taken from his warm security nuzzled in my safe breast, and have the most sensitive part of his body be torn and cut–most likely without anything to help ease his pain–and it went something like this:Â
He is strapped down in a cold room, naked from the waist down and scared. His heart is racing and his blood pressure is through the roof. The foreskin is ripped from the glans (think finger nail being ripped from the nail bed–only worse because this is his penis) and cut from his body forever. He screams, a scream so extreme words do not justify his suffering. Soon his screams turn into gurgling because he is choking on his own vomit–vomit because the pain is so severe, so intense his body tries to fight the only way it knows how.  The nurse is there to suction the vomit and bile from his throat,but nobody is there to stop this madness. The procedure ends, and he is forever changed.  Â
Some babies pass out–or “sleep right through it” as some would have the audacity to say. These babies are the lucky ones; the ones who pass out and are hopefully spared some of the pain.  Babies are put into the fight or flight mode days after birth. Can you imagine undergoing surgery without anesthesia? Why are we doing this to our sons? Why do we think that a newborn penis is less susceptible to pain?Â
When my son came back from his surgery he just couldn’t rest. He who was a champion nurser would no longer nurse well. Even as he got older he wouldn’t make eye contact with me and he woke up in the middle of the night with screaming episodes until he was 2 years old. Screaming episodes so intense my husband and I would sometimes end up in tears ourselves. The screaming was trance-like and we just had to wait it out. I will never know if his circumcision played a roll in his seemingly constant state of anxiety but I do not rule it out.Â
For the first 2 years of his life he would not sleep unless he was in my arms. Some nights even that wasn’t good enough, he had to be belly to belly with me and though I didn’t realize it at the time, this is the very thing that helped him heal. Helped him trust. And helped him gain confidence in his little world. Thank God I listened to my inner voice and did what he so desperately needed.  Would he have been the same intense baby had I left him intact? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I will always have a twinge of regret that I didn’t leave him camped out at my breast–where he belonged–like my instincts told to me to do.Â
If a man wants a circumcision later in life that is his choice.  His Choice.  Millions of women get cosmetic surgery and suffer through the painful recovery. I do not understand the argument that it is easier for an infant to have the surgery done than a grown man, this truly puzzles me. I can guarantee an adult man will not be strapped down awake and have his foreskin cut and removed while he screams in agony. I can guarantee this because we are not barbarians. So why are we treating our newborn son’s as if we were?
Please comment and let me know your thoughts, hopefully I haven’t offended any of my fellow moms. In no way do I equate circumcision with poor motherhood and I never will. My intent is to share my story and to inspire other parents to research themselves; to question our culture and to do better for our future generations.
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April 28th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
You ALMOST have me, and I ALMOST hope I have daughters so I will not have to deal with that decision even as easy as you make it sound. Everything sounds beautiful and peachy to let my son keep his skin- BUT what about social situations in the emotionally crucial pre-teen and teen years ie: locker rooms, first sexual experiences, etc. I always wonder if I chose not to clip the skin, if my son would blame be later.
besides the lame akwardness with adolesence, the real question I have is:
I believe and know (duh!) that a newborn experiences pain, but my real question is that it (seems?) like a quick process and does the newborn really remember ir like some mothers say they are scarred for life in more ways than one?
April 28th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Jessica,
Your concerns are very valid ones. The last thing holding me up was the social pressures–this is a huge deal for teenage boys. But the thing is, circ rates are on the decline in a major way. So by the time your son is a teenager, this might not even be an issue. And also, are boys really looking at each other’s penises that close? I don’t think so. And a quick–”why are you even looking?” comment will quickly turn the attention and laughter to the boy brining it up.
About the first sexual encounter–again to me it is all about educating our sons about their bodies and how the penis and foreskin are designed to work. Once a penis is erect it is not as easy to detect circ’d or not–especially in the dark. And lets face it, it wont take much or long for a teenage boy to go from six to noon if you know what I am saying. Women are not weirded out by the intact penis in Europe. We are just not used to it. But hopefully in the next generation, this will not even be an issue.
I once heard a funny saying that an intact foreskin is a filter for shallow women-ha!
And about the pain. Well, procedure probably takes between 5 and 10 minutes. So sure, not that long…unless you are talking about 5 to 10 minutes of excruciating pain. Chopping off a finger wouldn’t take that long either, and they wont remember it but that doesn’t make it ok. I have a link to the procedure if you are interested in watching it. You will never forget the screams of that baby because it is unlike any scream you have heard before, and you will never forget the sound of him choking on his vomit.
I do not think being circ’d affects all babies. Some might bounce right back right away. I know my son didn’t. I think the extent to the physiological damage is impossible to capture as all babies will react and recover differently. But why risk it? Why subject your son to a cosmetic surgery he doesn’t need?
April 30th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
This whole circumcision debate parents have right now kind of has me stumped in more than one way. I work at a peditrician’s office and can’t believe the amount of parents that come in complaining that their sons have an infection on their penis. The majority of the time it is due due to the parent not taking care of an uncircumcised penis.
If you as a parent are not going to take proper care of it, have the boy circumcised. These infections do not only happen to infants. I have seen 5 year old boys with problems. Again, this goes back to the parent teaching the child the proper way to take care of an uncircumcised penis.
One of the things that has me question parents decision to not circumcise is it diminishes the risk of cancer of the penis and lowers the risk for cancer of the cervix in sexual partners. It also decreases the risk of UTI’s in infants and young children. And it lowers the risk of certain STD’s in adulthood, especially HIV. Those reasons alone were the reason why my husband and I decided to circumcise our son. It had nothing to do with social acceptance. If that is what parents are after “I want my son to look like other boys.” Please get over it. They won’t have the same hair color, skin color, be the same height/weight as others, so why care so much about a penis?
Parents should also think to ask questions before they decide on circumcision.
1. Ask the OB who will do the circumcision? The OB or the Peditrician? Some hospitals the pediatricians do it, others the OB does it.
2. Ask if they can give him a local anesthetic?
3. Ask what type of circumcision they perform in the hospital. Gomco Clamp, Mogen Clamp or Plastibell? I can guarantee you the baby doesn’t just have the skin ripped from his penis. It is percisely cut.
4. Ask if they offer the baby a bottle of formula, sugar water, or a pacifier during the procedure? Some hospitals do.
5. Ask if you can go down with the baby and be able to feed, cuddle, or nurse the baby after the procedure? Actually, you as a parent can DEMAND these things, trust me.
6. Ask how long he will have to stay for observation after the procedure?
My son had anesthetic with his circumcision, so he therefore felt little or no pain. They let my husband walk with him down to the procedure and bring him back 20 minutes later so I was able to cuddle, and nurse him. His recovery period was only about 1 day and he was back to normal. Except for the penis healing of course.
And if I have another son in the future, he will be circumcised as well. Sorry to all of you that do not believe in it. But, I would rather my son go through possible pain for a few seconds than die of cancer or an STD in the future.
Ok sorry I did not mean to rant. I was just giving you a little something to think about.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:35 am
To those of you that are saying that it is OK to circumcise, must also think that infant females having their vagina’s sewn shut with needle and thread and with just a pin-head opening left, is also OK. Sorry to be so blunt - you are outdated idiots. How can you allow another to cause such pain and damage to your defenseless child? Nature has its miraculous reasons forming us in the male and female forms as we are. And to the religious - we are made in god’s image - this means we are defiling his image! Let your child make their own decision, when they are mature enough to undrstand hat they want, and in a safer and painless way. Stop scarring them both physically and emotionally!!!
May 1st, 2009 at 10:01 am
Karen-
Thanks so much for your input, I appreciate you reading and commenting!
Everything you listed seems like a good reason for the procedure. But further investigation cleared a lot of the misleading information out there for me so I want to share it.
UTI’s. There have been many studies done on comparative infections, and only ONE found a slight increase in UTIs, and that was ONLY for infants under 1 yr of age, there was no difference in any other age group, including elderly. And even in that study, the rate of Intact UTI’s was only 1 out of 100– WELL below the UTI rate for female infants which is 1 in 10) Not to mention, the rest of the world does NOT have a higher rate of infection as here. What stands out to me is 1 in 10 female infants get a UTI. But 1 in 100 boys and people are using uti’s as reason for circ’ing. That does not make sense to me.
Infections: I really don’t know what to say to that. One of my best friends is an ob nurse and worked in geriatric care for years and has never seen this, nor have any of the peds she has ever worked for seen it. I have interviewed my family physician as well as my pedi and neither have seen increased infection rates with an intact penis. The opposite is true actually. I worry that the ped you work for might be retracting the intact foreskin–which should absolutely NEVER be done. Doing so will introduce bacteria and such to get trapped under the foreskin which could be causing the the rate of infection in your office that you are seeing. The intact foreskin does not retract from the glans until much later in life making infection much less likely. If you are seeing the opposite, I would be worried.
Cancer and STD’s: The rate of penile cancer is so astronomically low. 3 men per one million for intact, vs 1 man per one million for circed. That is a very very narrow margin, so low in fact it could easily be fluke. Breast cancer is a leading cause of death for women. We could easily save millions of women by removing their breast tissue at birth. But that would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it? As far as STDs and cervical cancer, those studies are VERY conflicted, and there are just as many studies saying there is no decrease in rates, as there are studies saying there is. Even so, safe sex practices have much, much, MUCH more to do with STD’s and HIV than circumcision status. So much so that it’s silly to even think about using such an invasive, risky procedure to accomplish what only a fraction of the protection that safe sex/condoms provide (and are non-invasive/no risk).
Sorry for the lengthy comment. I am not trying to change your mind, just answering as to why I made my decision with the reasons that you listed.
I am extremly passionate about educating parents in our country. Sure on the surface it seems like circ’ing has its valid reasons. But the data just does not support the propeganda. It just doesn’t. Why are we the only country left to routinely circ our boys? Why don’t other civilized countries have all of the problems we are supposedly avoiding? Why don’t we circ our girls who produce much more smegma–vagina’s have a much higher rate of infection. We don’t because our culture tells us not to.
That is what it comes down to. Our culture.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 am
Rachael- what a great article. I’ve assisted in many, many circumcisions, and you managed to hit the nail right on the head when you described the procedure and the experience the newborn goes through.
I wanted to comment on one thing you seemed confused about. You mentioned that the dr came in and was upset that you were nursing him, told you to stop, and that you were confused about it. The reason is because babies are supposed to be “NPO” (a medical term that means they are to take nothing by mouth) for several hours before the procedure. They do this because if/when the baby vomits during the procedure, it is a lot easier to suction only the small amount of gastric juices, rather than trying to suction out an entire feed that gets vomited up.
Unfortunately, as you experienced, this withholding of feeding, as well as the withdrawal state they are in afterwards, often times will wreak havoc on a breastfeeding relationship. Ask any postpartum nurse, and they will tell you that many, MANY babies refuse to nurse after their circumcision.
Thank you again for this article. I absolutely hate doing this part of my job, and I really wish more parents were informed on this so I wouldn’t have to put up with it so much.
To the previous poster- as I mentioned, I work on the OB/Peds/Nicu floor of a hospital, and have a lot of experience with this subject. However I am confused at many of the comments you made. First of all, it concerns me that so many of the boys from your office are coming in with infections. All the research shows that the risk of infection in intact boys is very low. It is a red flag to me that boys from your office are having issues when they aren’t anywhere else. Second of all, what makes you think these infections are a result of not cleaning well enough? If a female infant came in with a UTI, would you assume it was because the parents were not “doing a good job cleaning”? My own daughter has had a UTI, and I certainly disagree with your conclusion.
I suspect that Rachael was correct when she mentioned it might be because the peds there might be recommending foreskin retraction/cleaning. Foreskin retraction on a young baby/child is the best way to invite infection. The foreskin is attached to the glans until sometime further in childhood, or even puberty. If you pull back the foreskin, you will cause tiny micro-tears and this introduces infection. The only time inner mucousal hygiene should be done (or even attempted) is when the synchea have fully released on their own- which once again doesn’t happen for several years.
And as for your comment that you recommend circumcision because you would rather have an infant experience pain than have them “die later on from cancer or STD”; are you unaware of the risks of circumcision itself? Penile cancer is one of the rarest cancers there is. However, I have personally seen a baby come within inches of death (and required a blood transfusion and weeks in the NICU) after hemorrhaging 5 hours post-op (after all the circ checks came back clear and baby was sent home). One other baby that was a very heavy bleeder and required silver nitrate treatment and a prolonged stay. And many other complications I could spend pages talking about that have rates of per/hundred rather than per/million. And these are not due to inexperience. I work at the best hospital in our state, only pediatricians perform the circs, and they all have many years of experience. These are risks that are inherent with such an invasive procedure.
Also, another subject that has been concerning the peds lately has been the rise of staph and MRSA creeping into our hospitals. Not just ours, across the country. The ped I was talking with, pointed out to me that the rate of staph/MRSA infections in newly circed boys, has now surpassed the number of UTI’s that they are seeing with all of their peds patients combined.
The rate of UTI for an intact baby is 1 in 100. That means we are doing SURGERY on 100 baby boys, to prevent ONE silly little UTI. As a trade-off for that one UTI, we are dealing with many MRSA infections and other surgical complications.
And as far as your comment about the different clamps, well *I* can guarantee that before any of those clamps is even applied, the foreskin IS ripped away from the glans, with either a special flattened “spatula” tool, or usually just a plain old serrated hemostat. The foreskin is attached to the glans, so they must “un-attach” (ie, rip) it away before they can even put the clamp on. THEN the clamping and cutting is done, but not until the ripping away is done first.
May 10th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
FINALLY a Mom I completely agree with. I have been meaning to write a post about why we didn’t have our boys cut and I have been scared to because it’s so taboo. I will now and link all the resources I read before we made our decision. I was leaning towards doing it, my husband was not (even though he is) and I am so glad he opened my eyes to what really happens.
Just found your blog a few days ago and love it. Happy Mother’s Day!
May 21st, 2009 at 6:02 pm
The reason these little boys have infections and problems with the foreskin is almost always the fault of meddling parents and ignorant (American) doctors.
When a baby boy is born, his immature foreskin is still fused to the head of his penis. Meddling parents or ignorant doctors will forcibly retract the foreskin to clean underneath it (doctors even used to advise it just a few decades ago!). Because the foreskin is still fused to the glans, this causes an excruciating ripping of the connected tissue (It’s just one of the painful steps of circumcision). The result is an open wound that leads to infections and scarring that can lead to phimosis and paraphimosis.
As a parent, you should only clean what can be seen. Mother nature made reproduction as automatic as possible, so don’t meddle where it’s unnecessary—the penis will keep itself clean internally; eventually the foreskin will detach naturally from the head of the penis usually around the age 6-8 years old, but studies have shown that it can rarely take until late adolescense. When boys play with themselves (subconsciously even) it can speed up the process, but there is no reason to rush it along.
Come on people! The penis has been developed over MILLIONS of years of evolution. Leave it alone.
Outside of Islam, Judaism, the U.S., and—because of the U.S. presence in the Korean War—South Korea, the circumcision of healthy boys is unheard of and even considered cruel. Heck, routine circumcision was even outlawed in Finland in 2006.
July 5th, 2009 at 3:14 am
the secret…
The more you apply it, the more the Law of Attraction Works….
August 31st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Hello!
My name is Deniz and I’m from Germany. My story is actually pretty interesting how I learned to love my foreskin.
First of all: I’m pretty lucky that I did not have the circumcision done at birth, since my father was a muslim at that time (now he is not anymore - or rather: he isn#t taking that too seriously). However, at that time he was a little ‘obsessed’ with traditions and wanted it to be done to me any my brother, but my mother stepped in and prevented it - something I’m now very thankful for.
Till my puberty (or a bit after? aroung 15-16 years) I did not worry much about everything down there, but then there was the time when I tried to retract it. It was a shock: It did not retract properly. I did a lot of research and found out that I had a phimosis. I throught about getting circed at that time, but in the end I (luckily) did not do it. I started to use some creame and gently strechted it. And it worked - so well that I have no trobule AT ALL with it now.
This somewhat kindled the small fire in me, because later on I discovered what I had rescued and I’m very sure that letting the doc cut it off would’ve been a fatal mistake for me.
Later on, I met some people who were not satisfied with their circumcision (for a number of reasons, for example extensive scarring because the doc messed somewhat up).
When I talked to these people I realized what an effect such a “small” (it is not very small at all :P) piece of skin can have.
The more I read about circumcision, the less I liked it, and now I’m completely against this “parents have the right to choose to have it done”-nonsense.
The only one who has the right to choose about such things is the child, noone else (except in medical emergencies).
Well, to these UTIs: I NEVER experienced something like that, nor have I ever heard of other uncirced people I have talked to, of things like that. Sure, something like this can happen, but that it should be the foreskins fault seems so… redicolous. How should it be responsible for that, if one keeps it clean enough? I think the only thing one needs to do is raising children with a good degree of responsibility and explain to them why it is important and WHEN (! never force a foreskin back too early !).
Well, that’s my story.
Best wishes