past retraction

[JollyGG]

My son is intact. When he was born the research I did was hazy on the care of an intact penis. I had heard that I needed to retract and clean it. When he went to daycare I asked the babysitter if she was familiar with care of an intact boy and she said she was. One day she kept trying to show me what she thought might be an infection that she noticed and retracted by son's foreskin to show me. I did not feel there was any infection. I told her I would really prefer she avoid retraction in the future. Her retracting just made me uncomfortable as my son seemed to dislike it. I was uncomfortable with the idea of soap residue, diaper rash cream or whatever getting in it and irritating it. I never really bothered retracting when I cleaned him since I could see very little ways for anything to get in and it seemed that by retracting I was actually giving possible sources if irritation an in. Once I found research saying I didn't have to retract I was ecstatic because I was uncomfortable with doing so.

Now he is six and everything seems to function properly.

Do I need to worry about any damage that the early retraction may have caused?

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

I would say if anything was going to show up it would have already.

I am disturbed though that she was retracting him that is the worst thing that anyone could do. For any lurkers out there retraction of any kind even a tiny bit is a big :

You didnt mention if you ds is retractable now or not? If he isnt that is 100% normal. If he is that is normal as well.

I would make it a point to ask him when he hits his teen years if he can retract OK and if not then I would let him know there are things to do to help that but that is wwwaaay in the future just thought I would mention it.

I wouldnt worry right now though.

[JollyGG]

He is fully retractable now.

While I do understand that retraction is not supposed to be done it was common advise for quite some time. His sitter was doing what she had been told to do by previous parents of intact sons. (They even got mad claiming that she must not have been retracting and cleaning properly since their son got an infection. Though I have since learned the problems were probably caused by the retraction itself rather than a failure to clean it properly.) I did inform her that I did not want her to retract my son even before I had done research and learned differently because it made me uncomfortable. But, I don't really blame her for doing the best she knew at the time. I'll admit my understanding was that you were supposed to retract and clean intact penis. I didn't because I was uncomfortable with it. But until I did more research and discovered that retraction should not be done I felt a little guilty that I wasn't cleaning my little guy properly. I was very happy when I did find out that it was unnecessary because that agreed with my instincts.

But I read so much on here about how careful you need to be and how horrible it is to retract that I started worrying that the retraction as a baby may be setting him up for future problems.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Yeah we do go a bit over board on the retraction thing it isnt that easy to damage it obviously or the little boys would tear it off

It can cause problems down the road. Like you mentioned infections that is a big problem it can cause.

It can cause scare tissue to form as well leading to true phimosis down the road. But it takes repeat forced retraction to cause that. If the care giver was just retracting as far as it would go then odds are that wont be a problem.

It is just easier to prevent issues by not retracting than it is to fix them once they happen.

[Yulia_R]

Originally Posted by JollyGG

They even got mad claiming that she must not have been retracting and cleaning properly since their son got an infection.

Poor baby got an infection BECAUSE she was retracting

[tutucrazy]

I think it sounds like he is fine. I wouldn't worry about it now.

Now that you know the proper care, please educate other parents and care providers. You could save a baby boy from a ton of harm just by speaking up.