Hi all,
My DS is 22 months old and intact. We haven't had any problems, but I've been wondering something for a while....
First, some background - he was born very prematurely and spent over 3 months in the NICU. At the time, we didn't really know anything about retracting or not retracting a baby and we just assumed everyone there knew what they were doing. I do imagine that they mostly deal with intact boys, since circs aren't done until right before discharge, but I know now that that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
When he was discharged and we brought him to the ped for the first time, she instructed us to pull the foreskin back and clean under it regularly.
I didn't really like doing it since I felt like I had no way of knowing if I was pushing too far, but again, I trusted that this was proper. I would only push it back the tiniest bit, but again, I know now that it should not have been done at all. I never encountered any feeling of resistance, and DS never complained, so I don't know if he was just naturally able to retract at least that little bit by then, or if he was forcibly retracted more at some point. As soon as I came across some info saying that it should be left alone, I did some more research and we have left it alone since. This was within a few months of him coming home from the hospital, so it has been a while now.
So again, no problems or anything....but I worry that even these small retractions by us, or some other potential retraction(s) by HCPs could have caused some kind of damage. If it had, would we have seen something by now?
My DS is 22 months old and intact. We haven't had any problems, but I've been wondering something for a while....
First, some background - he was born very prematurely and spent over 3 months in the NICU. At the time, we didn't really know anything about retracting or not retracting a baby and we just assumed everyone there knew what they were doing. I do imagine that they mostly deal with intact boys, since circs aren't done until right before discharge, but I know now that that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
When he was discharged and we brought him to the ped for the first time, she instructed us to pull the foreskin back and clean under it regularly.
I didn't really like doing it since I felt like I had no way of knowing if I was pushing too far, but again, I trusted that this was proper. I would only push it back the tiniest bit, but again, I know now that it should not have been done at all. I never encountered any feeling of resistance, and DS never complained, so I don't know if he was just naturally able to retract at least that little bit by then, or if he was forcibly retracted more at some point. As soon as I came across some info saying that it should be left alone, I did some more research and we have left it alone since. This was within a few months of him coming home from the hospital, so it has been a while now.So again, no problems or anything....but I worry that even these small retractions by us, or some other potential retraction(s) by HCPs could have caused some kind of damage. If it had, would we have seen something by now?
but we havent done it since and he has had no issues at all! I wouldnt worry 
