Warm Hearts Happy Family

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. 

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. 

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: 

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.   

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? 

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. 

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. 

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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Detroit Motherhood Examiner: Why todays parents are saying no to circumcision

I have one thing to ask before you continue on with this article. Open your mind, read the information without defenses. I have had my own personal journey with circumcision, my son is circumcised, and I will admit I thought the idea of not circumcising was just…weird. So I get the resistance to the culture shift, I really do.

We are the only country that routinely circumcises our infants at birth for non religious reasons. This is not the norm in other countries. In fact when speaking with a European friend of mine who was expecting a boy, she said she would not only not circumcise her son, but that she would never stand for it. When you live in a culture that does not routinely circumcise, the question becomes why would you.

So, do Europeans and their intact penises have mystery penis problems? Are they dirty? Do they have a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases? The answer is no. Really? Are these not the main problems that we are trying to avoid?

First let’s examine some of what is lost after a circumcision is performed in the United States (In the US, most hospital circumcisions are done to the Bris Periah standard of removing every ounce of foreskin and, in a large percentage of cases, some shaft skin).

Foreskin: The foreskin comprises around 50% of the movable skin system of the penis. In fact the average foreskin if spread out, would be about 15 square inches. The average adult foreskin has three to four feet of blood vessels and amazingly between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings of several types. All of this is removed.

Ridged Band: The ridged band is comprised of soft ridges near where the inner and outer foreskin meet. This is the primary erogenous zone in an intact male penis.

Meissner’s Corpuscles: Meissner’s Corpuscles are thousands of coiled fine touch receptors. This is arguably the most important sensory component of the foreskin.

Other losses include:

Gliding Action
Frenulum
Dartos Fascia
Immunological System
Lymphatic Vessels
Estrogen Receptors
Apocrine Glands
Sebaceous Glands
Langerhans Cells
Natural Glans Coloration
Length and Circumference
Dorsal Nerves

So while the adult penis “works” when circumcised, it is arguable that it doesn’t come close to the experience it is designed for. I was always under the impression just a little extra “flap” of skin was removed — such an old myth.

One of the first defenses to circumcision I always here is that a cut penis is cleaner. In reality the opposite is true in infancy. The intact infant penis does not retract so care is so much easier. You just wipe and go! And when the boy is older and the foreskin separates from the glans I am positive they can learn to pull back the foreskin and rinse. We teach our girls proper hygiene and our boys are just as capable. In fact world wide female circumcision is a much more practiced procedure. And the main reason cultures site is that a circumcised vagina is cleaner. Things that make you go hmmm…

Let’s tackle sexually transmitted diseases. This is a big one and I will to be brief and clear. The study done in Africa regarding circumcision and HIV has caused much undeserved buzz. The study says circumcision decreased the transmission of HIV. While this may be true, the study was never finished. Time for the circumcised group to heal was not factored into the equation, and they stopped mid study to circumcise the control group.

Just pause to really think about whether routine infant circumcision decreases STD’s in the united states. We have the highest rates of circumcision and we do not have lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases. Also, why don’t countries that do not routinely circumcise, and are on the same level socially as America, have much higher HIV rates than us? The data is out there, and it just does not support this theory.

This just barely scratches the surface but my hope is it will give you pause — and prompt some investigation into the issue on your own. Here is a great article on what can happen when a circumcision goes wrong. Is it worth the risk?

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