rates of anesthesia use?

[TCA2008]

What is the most recent data on use of pain relief? The last information I saw showed that a large number of OBs still were not using pain relief, but that was a few years ago.

It seems all of the hospitals around my area are now using pain relief during circumcision. I know the doctors were not using it 11 years ago when I had my first son (that I didn't circumcise). At least the message that circumcision is painful does seem to be spreading.

I know there are a number of OB nurses in this forum. What are you currently seeing at your hospitals? Are more doctors using pain relief now?

[PuppyFluffer]

I have an aquaintance who is an OB nurse (she's pro intact) and she said that when they do use pain relief, they don't wait the necessary time for it to take effect because they just want to get the circ over with....So, these babies are enduring the prick of the needle and the sting of the anesthetic without also getting the benefit of the anesthesia, so it seems to me that they are having pain added to the procedure instead of having pain lessened. It's really sad and sick in my opinion.

[PolarMommy]

The criminal aspect of lack of anelgesics is that the medical community RECOMMENDS using them during circumcision, but does not make it MANDATORY. The AAP states that pain relief should be provided, but it is not mandatory. I do not understand under what law it is ok for doctors to operate on infants without pain relief. So torture is an institutionalized, standardized policy of the medical community.

One statistics I've read is that approximately 50% of procedures in hospitals are done without ANY form of pain relief, while the other 50% use ineffective numbing gels, or the (more effective) dorsal block. But that still leaves hundreds of thousands of baby boys each year cut without any form of anelgesics.

Casual interviews with OBs revealed that they do not like using the dorsal block, because it causes mild swelling of the area, making it more difficult to perform the circumcision with precision. Many will use the numbing gel which requires 45 minutes to take effect (and still offers minimal relief) but doctors don't wait that much time. Many OBs still believe it's quick enough to perform without anything at all, and besides babies are "resilient" so they don't care

Finally, what about circumcisions done outside of hospitals? In those cases, pain is not managed at all.

[Claire and Boys]

Originally Posted by PuppyFluffer

I have an aquaintance who is an OB nurse (she's pro intact) and she said that when they do use pain relief, they don't wait the necessary time for it to take effect because they just want to get the circ over with....So, these babies are enduring the prick of the needle and the sting of the anesthetic without also getting the benefit of the anesthesia, so it seems to me that they are having pain added to the procedure instead of having pain lessened. It's really sad and sick in my opinion.

yes - many times I've heard people say their baby was back with them in 5 minutes - in other words, they had NO pain relief at all. no way there was time for the anaesthetic to work before they did it.