Help making the decision, please!

[rclaz]

Hi,
We are looking for some pretty concise and to the point pros and cons to circumcise or not to circumcise. I've given it little thought until finding out I'm having a boy (due 8/5). My next appt is 6/30 and I'd like to have the discussion with my mw/ob team. Husband never considered we wouldn't, all arguments either way aside, I have a hard time imagining anyone taking anything sharp to my baby. Anyhow, looking to make an informed decision and am overwhelmed by ALL the info out there. Any ideas where we can read up on it? I don't want to just do it b/c weighing it all out overwhelms me in the midst of everything else to think about.
Thanks!
Rebecca

[Storm Bride]

I can't help you, as I don't know any pros to cutting off part of a baby's penis.

For me, the biggest "con" is that I don't think I have any right to lop off part of a baby's penis, just because I happened to be the one who grew him. It's his penis, not mine. I can't imagine peeling back my child's fingernails and cutting them off, so I certainly wouldn't do the same thing to a penis.

[rclaz]

ok...thanks? I guess I meant I have heard things, in terms of "pros" that is such as:
- reduces risk of penile cancer
- reduced risk of STDs
- eases anxiety about looking like dad

I'm not sure how much any of those points are valid, it's all stuff I've sort of heard. My MIL's first husband's father was uncircumcised and as an elderly man who wasn't was able to take care of his body, suffered and infection in the head/foreskin and had to have a circumcision at 87 years old. She said it was quite painful.

Anyhow, all this said, I don't write it to advocate it. Merely to explain things I've heard. I want to be informed and understand.

Stormbride, I feel similarly as you. It goes against every grain in my body to even think of cutting into or off any part of my baby's body.
That said, I'm all about being informed. So, I want to be sure I understand everything. For my own piece of mind, and I'm sure I'll be attacked by family if we don't. I want to be able to articulate it clearly.

[ChristaN]

You'll get some links to address those things you've heard in regard to disease reduction from others I am sure. Since this board is dedicated to leaving babies intact, the advice you are given here will lean that direction as well, I'm sure.

In regard to the old man with infections, I did want to point out that we women have a lot of folds of skin around our genitalia as well that must be manipulated and rinsed out as adults as well. Shortly after finishing college, I worked in an alzheimers care facility for a short while. All of the old people had wrinkly, folded skin around those areas that needed cleaning. I imagine that it is embarrassing and difficult for care providers to clean the private parts of elderly people -- intact or not. I know that it was for me at 21. None the less, we don't remove the labias on women to avoid them getting infected or dirty if/when they get old and need nursing care. We clean them if that is the case. I am also not in favor or prophalactially removing healthy body tissue in an infant b/c it might present a problem 80 yrs down the line.

[hdeering]

You might want to read
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision: Untold Facts on America's Most Widely Performed-and Most Unnecessary-Surgery by M.D. Paul M. Fleiss (Author), D.Phil Frederick M. Hodges

Check your local library or ask them to get it on inter-library loan.
http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-About-C.../dp/0446678805

[BlessedMommy2006]

Originally Posted by rclaz

ok...thanks? I guess I meant I have heard things, in terms of "pros" that is such as:
- reduces risk of penile cancer
- reduced risk of STDs
- eases anxiety about looking like dad

Hi Rebecca! Congratulations on your little boy! My 2nd baby was a boy too and oh, it's wonderful! :

Let me address the 3 things that you mentioned one by one:

Penile cancer:
Penile cancer is very, very rare. It's not clear whether circumcision even offers protection against it (circumcised men can get it too, usually along the scar line), but even so, the American Cancer Society doesn't recommend circumcising to prevent penile cancer. Your baby probably has an equal chance of dying from circumcision (yes, it does happen, a baby in British Columbia bled to death following a circumcision in 2002 and there have been others as well) as he does of ever getting penile cancer.
Women have a 1 in 8 chance of getting breast cancer, but we don't remove the breast buds of baby girls at birth, kwim?

STD's:

America has one of the highest circumcision rates in the world and also has a very high rate of STD's. The studies on circumcision and STD's have been mainly in Africa. Anyway, everyone agrees that behavior is much more important than circumcision status for HIV prevention. I intend to teach my son abstinence (others may opt for condom education, depending on their beliefs) to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, rather than taking away a pleasurable part of his body.

Looking like Dad:
My husband is circumcised. After looking at the facts, he now wishes that he wasn't. He is currently trying to start restoring his foreskin, so with any luck by the time DS is old enough to notice, Dad will have a foreskin too!

But in all seriousness, any family where the dad was circ'ed and the son wasn't, will normally say that it wasn't a problem at all between them. If the son asks, you simply say something like, "When I was born, doctors thought it was good to cut off part of a baby's penis, Mommy and Daddy researched and found out that it wasn't necessary and caused babies lots of pain, so we decided to leave your natural body alone."

The son will normally be happy that he was spared from that and may even say something like, "Poor Daddy!"


My husband was circ'ed in the 1970's and has a very tight circ. We realized that this was the source of problems such as his occasionally painful erections. This is why they do looser circ's nowadays. However the looser circ's are even more problematic, leaving skin behind to create adhesions, etc. The ONLY circ that is guaranteed to be free from problems is the one that never happens.

[Marnica]

My suggestion to you is to look into the history of circumsicion. Here is agreat site for some perspective http://www.historyofcircumcision.net...ask=view&id=90

In a nutshell routine cirsumcison was begun in the 1800's beause it was thought that any non-procreating activity using the genitals (ie masterbation) was viewed as dangerous.

The result was the formulation of the Reflex Neurosis Theory of Disease, which postulated that the sexual organs and the erotic sensations they produced were the cause of all human disease. To validate this theory, American physicians redefined normal human sexual behaviour, reproductive anatomy and sexual function in terms of pathology.

Ok so we know that is a load of hooey. Even the AAP stopped recommending circumcision in the 70's I think.

What did it for me was watching the video. FORCE YOURSELF TO WATCH IT; DO NOT LOOK AWAY.

http://www.circumcisionquotes.com/video.html

Any parent that can go ahead and cut their baby after watching this...well more power to ya

[rclaz]

Ladies, THANK YOU!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I SO appreciate all this info. I am definitely on the don't do it side of the line.
I pointed out to DH that if penile cancer is so rare then the odds of getting it are SO very small anyhow. I hadn't thought about female and male skin folds... although, doesn't a woman's vagina sort of naturally "clean" itself? I'm probably saying this wrong, but I thought that was part of the thing with a woman's natural bodily fluids? Where as a man has to do that manually, right?
I also think it's an excellent point about the breast buds. Funny, the most compelling point to my husband is the "look alike" factor. It's the least, for me. My breasts look different from my mom. My hair color is different. I have many differences in looks from my mom, and I cannot recall ONCE sitting around obsessing over it and wondering why I was so different. I just was/am b/c I'm a different person. Although, I'm not a man, and I don't know if that is a bigger deal for them, being the penis and all. My first love was uncircumcised, and truth be told for quite a while I never knew! When we were intimate, there was no telling either way!
Again, many, many thanks! If anyone has another thoughts or links, or reading suggestions please send them my way!!
Thanks!
Rebecca

[Fellow Traveler]

Welcome Rebecca I was going to ask which reasons do you find most compelimg but I see that you provided that. I do want to reply but can't fully until later tonight. The quick answer are that even if those thing are try you're talking about smal numbers. As far as the look like daddy I can say first hand that's not important.

[JMJ]

Removing my breasts would reduce my risk of breast cancer too, but I have no intention of doing that unless they actually become cancerous.

Even if circumcision would reduce the risk of STD's (There are some flaws in the major studies that claim this.), other factors (such as not exposing yourself) give much greater protection. I wouldn't count on a circumcision to protect my son from STD's.

If you don't point out the fact that he is different, I doubt there will ever be an issue.

The other "pro" I have heard is a decreased risk of infection due to lack of cleanliness. If your son is not circumcised (and even if he is), it is your responsibility to learn how and to teach him how to clean and care for his penis. You can't expect most people in our culture to know how to care for an intact penis because circumcision has been so widespread.

Here are some more cons:
-impaired sexual function: Your son may have a more difficult time having sex, and both he and his partner may experience reduced pleasure.
-pain: Studies show that babies actually experience pain more acutely than adults. If it is painful at 87, how much more painful must it be as a baby.

The health benefits that are claimed by people who are pro-circumcision are really not an issue for children. They're not going to be having sex or getting penile cancer. Why not wait until your son is of an age that he can make the decision himself? You can also use that so that if your son asks why he doesn't look like Daddy, you can tell him that Daddy wants to look like that, and when he is old enough, he can decide for himself how he wants to look.

I hope that was objective enough.

[susienjay]

I know the "matching" issue is a big deal to a lot of fathers. Being circed as infants they have no idea to what they are missing or what they are consenting to have amputated from their own son. But I think many of them think it must have been done for a good reason. When in reality it was really forced on a lot of families for reasons we now know are false.

My dh is circed and we have 2 intact boys. My older son is 5 and the few times he's seen dh naked his only comment has been that daddy's penis is big and his penis is little. When he started standing to pee when he was 3 he was so excited that he was just like daddy. Really circing or not doesn't matter with that kind of father/son bonding. I know I've heard of people recommend circing because it's easier with potty learning if they match dad. For us it hasn't made a bit of difference. I suppose at some point ds might notice but I can handle telling him dh had surgery as a baby and we didn't want to put him through that.

[trmpetplaya]

What it comes down to for me - other than the fact that the medical benefits aren't enough to justify a prophylactic surgery on a brand new baby - is choice.

The odds are good that either way - circumcised or intact - your son will be happy. Most men are.

However, if he's unhappy and has been left intact, he can always choose to be circumcised later in life. Contrary to popular opinion, it's really not all that painful because adults can be put completely under or have perfectly adequate local anesthetic as well as pain medication for the healing period afterwards. I have a good friend who chose to be circumcised when he was 19 or 20 years old and he said that the surgery itself as well as the healing afterwards really wasn't a big deal.

Now, if he's unhappy and has been circumcised then he's out of luck. He can regain some of the benefits of being intact through foreskin restoration, but he can never regain everything that was lost.

The other big issue for me is the complication rate... as far as surgeries go it's not particularly high, but as far as unnecessary cosmetic (or even possibly prophylactic) surgeries go, it's unacceptably high.

The conservative thing to do is to leave it alone unless it becomes a problem and the foreskin is no more likely to become a problem than any other body part. There are no other healthy body parts that are amputated just in case they might possibly someday have a problem with them that amputation might possibly have been able to prevent. So why amputate this one?

As for the "matching" father argument... my husband is intact and his father is circumcised. It was never an issue and my dh is very extremely glad that he does not "match" his father with regards to circumcision status. Just because the father had a body part amputated does not mean that the son automatically should too. Your son might have different colored hair or eyes than his father does (as you are well aware) and yet he'll still bond with his father just fine

Best wishes to you!

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by rclaz

although, doesn't a woman's vagina sort of naturally "clean" itself?

A man's foreskin is self cleaning as well...smegma...it's latin for soap

Also, remember that until they are retractable, you only wipe it like a finger...NO ONE should ever manipulate your sons foreskin in any way except for him...not even a doctor. That is what causes more problems with intact boys than anything else

Originally Posted by rclaz

Funny, the most compelling point to my husband is the "look alike" factor.

Does your DH know if his father was cut? My DH just found out his was intact. He was really surprised...it was obviously never an issue and he used to shower with his dad. He was way more concerned about size and hair.

Think about this...really think about it...are they going to be parading aroung the neighborhood naked do that the neighbors can compare? I would think people would be much more likely to notice that your DS has different hair or eye color...does your DH plan on dying your son's hair if it's not the same color...what about contact lenses for one of them if their eyes don't match...if you really look at this issue..it becomes more and more laughable.

Originally Posted by rclaz

It's the least, for me. My breasts look different from my mom. My hair color is different. I have many differences in looks from my mom, and I cannot recall ONCE sitting around obsessing over it and wondering why I was so different.

I'll bet ya anything that you never even noticed if your mom's labia looked like yours

Originally Posted by rclaz

I just was/am b/c I'm a different person. Although, I'm not a man, and I don't know if that is a bigger deal for them, being the penis and all.

Men need to think that it's important because it was done to them...it's the same reason that woman in country's that practice FGM are the main pushers for doing it to thier daughters...it's not the men that want to cut these girls, it's the mother's and female relatives...why? because it was done to them so it must be better...thier mother's wouldn't have mutilated them with no reason...right? It has to be better that way or they would have to wrap their heads around the fact that something important was taken from them.

Can you imagine a man in this position? Having to deal with the fact that a very important part of their genitals was taken from them painfully? It's much safer to believe it's important and just a flap of skin and that they are better off without it...so they do it to their son's.

[perspective]

Originally Posted by rclaz

I hadn't thought about female and male skin folds... although, doesn't a woman's vagina sort of naturally "clean" itself? I'm probably saying this wrong, but I thought that was part of the thing with a woman's natural bodily fluids? Where as a man has to do that manually, right?

Actually the the area under the foreskin is just as self cleaning as those same outer areas with skin folds for women.
Neither are as self cleaning as say the mouth or the vaginal canal, but both need limited cleaning, like a swoosh of water, and of course NEVER harsh soaps.


I was quite shocked by the way you put it: "- eases anxiety about looking like dad."

As a younger guy I can tell you that there is no "anxiety" about my penis looking like my Dads. That was never a concern or even a thought that passed through my head when I was a kid. If that were true boys would probably be MUCH more concerned with size of their penis compared to their father, then a little additional skin!

I think this myth comes from some circed fathers being nervous about the difference at first, but they get use to it, but I dont think sons ever really care.

[Cheshire]

ChristaN was talking about cleaning of the labia in older patients at the nursing home and comparing it to the foreskin. When older, whether man or woman, it needs to be cleaned and if it's not it can lead to problems. That's an issue for the adult to manage and not a potential problem to be heaped on a baby.

My personal reasons for not circ'ing - DH looked into it and he realized it wasn't necessary. I, being full of pregnancy hormones, didn't think it was necessary either but I had such a hard time making any decisions during my first pregnancy. By the time he was born I knew it wasn't necessary and that it wouldn't be done but getting there took a few months of a weird waffling on my part. Hard to explain.

He is now 5 and the only reason he knows he is different from his dad is because he had a UTI (note to readers, when teaching a 4 yo to wipe his own bottom make sure he isn't using that same tissue to dab at the drop of urine on the tip of his penis). That UTI took us to three different docs and many "circ isn't an option" talks but we finally got it cleared up. He's seen his dad plenty of times and never noticed before - no matter what, circ or not, a grown man does not look like a boy and I don't know of any men that compare theirs with their son's.

Why I'm glad we didn't:
-my son is just as he was made, perfect
-so much easier to care for as a baby
-having my 4 yo thank us for not circ'ing him when he found out what it was
-knowing that it is his choice when he is old enough to make it

Do not worry about what others think. If family asks you can give your reasons but if they argue just ask them why they are so concerned about his penis - would they ask the same questions about how you are caring for a daughter? I took that attitude of the decision has been made, we researched it and it is best for our son. Those in the family that do not agree only asked once. It wasn't an argument but it was a "this is not up for discussion" vibe in my answer.

And, the only reason we really discussed it at all was just to let those who would be caring for him and changing his diapers know not to retract - just wipe like the end of your finger and leave the foreskin in place. Super easy.

In addition to the fight over the UTI with the docs our son had a yeast infection at 2 because he spent too much time in a wet swim diaper. Easy to fix and didn't require amputation. We don't do this to our girls and we shouldn't do it to our boys for issues that, if they do happen, are so easily fixed.

Best wishes and congrats!

[eepster]

Originally Posted by rclaz

I hadn't thought about female and male skin folds... although, doesn't a woman's vagina sort of naturally "clean" itself? I'm probably saying this wrong, but I thought that was part of the thing with a woman's natural bodily fluids? Where as a man has to do that manually, right?

The intact penis is just as self cleaning as the vagina.

At the time that it was decided that penises needed to be throughly cleaned they also recommended similar cleaning strategies for women. I don't know if you're old enough to remember doucheing, but they used to make devices with cleaning solutions that you squirted up there. It was found that these caused infections in women, and doucheing fell out of favor.

The same is true for penises, but the info is not as widely known. Just as with women, who can get yeast infections from over cleaning their genitles, men who clean too much or use harsh soap will suffer from things like yeast infections. Ofcourse the yeast infection can be easily treated with the exact same yeast cream that women use, but it often they are circumcised (like you MIL's FIL) instead.

At the infant stage you just clean the outside, same as for girls, anything that finds its way in gets flushed out with the next stream of urine. After puberty, he will just want to pull back on it and rinse it in the shower. It's easier for them than it is for women, b/c they don't need to worry about the bleeding with AF.

[ChristaN]

The vaginal canal or vagina is self-cleaning as you mention which is why things like douching are not recommended. The vulva, which are the two folds of skin on the outside of the vagina, do need some rinsing as I'm sure you know as a woman . My understanding is that the foreskin works the same way as do our vulvas. A woman might need to have her vulva moved around a bit and some rinsing in the shower or bath and a man might need to have his foreskin moved around (or retracted) a bit to rinse out dead skin cells (just like the ones we get). The smegma the other poster mentioned is that same white build up of dead skin cells that both sexes produce.

Just to be clear, when I mention movement or retraction of the vulva or foreskin to rinse out dead skin cells, I am referring to something that the individual would do him/herself when physically mature and those tissues are naturally retractable or movable. The only instance in which someone else would be doing this type of cleaning is, like you mention, an elderly person with dementia or severe physical limitations in a nursing home type of setting who needs extensive assistance with self care.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by rclaz

Funny, the most compelling point to my husband is the "look alike" factor. It's the least, for me. My breasts look different from my mom. My hair color is different. I have many differences in looks from my mom, and I cannot recall ONCE sitting around obsessing over it and wondering why I was so different. I just was/am b/c I'm a different person. Although, I'm not a man, and I don't know if that is a bigger deal for them, being the penis and all. My first love was uncircumcised, and truth be told for quite a while I never knew! When we were intimate, there was no telling either way!

My ex was circ'd (I'm 41 - I've never seen an intact adult male). DS1 wasn't, because I'd have probably killed anybody who had tried it. My ex and I split up when ds1 was 7. Prior to that, we'd always been a very casual family about nudity, and ds1 had seen my ex naked hundreds, if not thousands, of times. He had no idea that his dad didn't have a foreskin. I'm not actually sure if he knows now. The only time he ever mentioned daddy looking different was in respect to the hair...a far more visible difference, imo. I'm astonished at how often I see this one...

ETA: It also occurs to me that ds2 has never commented on any difference between his penis and dh's penis. He's seen his dad naked many, many times. I don't believe my brother (intact) ever noticed anything, either.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by JMJ

-pain: Studies show that babies actually experience pain more acutely than adults. If it is painful at 87, how much more painful must it be as a baby.

...especially since the 87 year old man didn't need to have his forcibly torn away from the glans at the same time...

[nd_deadhead]

Welcome to the board, Rebecca, and congratulations on your pregnancy!

Here's a nice article with lots of good links:

http://www.circumstitions.com/Itsaboy.html

Others have covered your questions very well, but I want to reinforce a couple of things:

1. Your baby is not sexually active, therefore he does not need protection from STDs. If he decides FOR HIMSELF that circumcision will offer him some protection (in addition to safe sex practices), he can make that choice for himself.

2. My twin boys are 14 years old, and found out about circumcision when they were 8 (they heard the word in a church sermon, of all places, and asked what it meant). They were horrified at the idea - they couldn't imagine why anyone would want to cut off their foreskin. When we explained that most men don't choose it for themselves, but their parents have it done to them when they are babies, they were appalled. We explained that their Dad was circumcised, and one of the boys said "I thought Dad just kept his foreksin pulled back all the time". It never occured to either of them that his foreskin had actually been cut off - why would it? Unles you've been conditioned to believe that it is "normal", it is a very bizarre concept. My other son said "Poor Dad - he's missing the best part!"

I think THAT is the problem - it's not that men think their sons will be traumatized if they realize that their penis looks different from Dad's, it's that Dad doesn't want to accept the fact that perhaps his penis is missing something important. You don't see men with beards and mustaches shaving them off, so they match their young sons - why should they be concerned about a body part hardly anyone sees?

My DH and his brother (both circumcised) were in their 40's when they learned that their Dad had been intact. Obviously it wasn't a cause for concern in their family, any more than it is in ours (DH's brother left his two sons intact as well). The "tradition" of circumcision lasted exactly 1 generation.

As I said, my sons are 14 - almost 15. We didn't have Internet access when I was pregnant, and didn't even realize that circumcision was controversial. When we thought about it (without doing any more research than asking our family doctor about it), we had the following thoughts:

1. That's GOT to HURT! We didn't want our babies to go through any unnecessary pain.

2. All baby boys are born with a foreskin, so it must be there for a reason (even if we had no idea what the reasons were at the time).

3. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

4. We both felt that circumcision was more of a social custom than a medical issue, and neither of us felt compelled to follow the custom. I remember one of us saying "It's going to stop eventually - it might as well begin with our boys".


Best wishes to you, Rebecca, for a comfortable pregnancy and a healthy baby! If your DH has any questions or concerns about having an intact son, please don't hesitate to come back here for advice and support.

Ann