Advice

[jennpn]

My 23 month old son was circumsized when he was 7 weeks old. I was mortified, saddened and guilty. I allowed this to happen becuase every boy in my family including my father and 5 cousins needed to be circumsized when they were preschoolers. They remember this procedure and begged me when I disclosed that the gentic marker of a larger then average size penis was evident to please have him circumsized sooner then later as the momory of what they had to go through was one they wanted my son spared from. Understandable and I couldn't imagine explaining why this had to happen to my 4-5 year old son. I hated making this decision for my newborn but my husband assured me as a circumsized adult that he has no issue and doesn't mind a bit that he has been. Now we are expecting again and I don't know if I can do it again but if the same condition is evident I don't know if there is a better choice? My male relatives suffered from tight foreskin and infections before they underwent the procedure. Any advice or resources you could reccomend to me?

Thanks!

[Bm31]

Your relatives were all victims of an ignorant and/or unethical doctor. The foreskin is suppose to be "tight" at that age; it's usually still fused to the glans. Forced premature retraction for "cleaning" or to "loosen" it is likely what caused the infections. The size of the penis is irrelevant, unless your family thinks there's a benefit in doing reductive surgery. No preschooler needs to be circumcised. Period.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

: I am sorry you got such horrible medical advice. There is absolutly no way that having a large penis is an indication for circ.

[pdx.mothernurture]

Wait...there's a genetic marker for big penises detectable during pregnancy?

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

None that I ever heard of I just assumed I misunderstood the OP on that part.

[jennpn]

no we didn't know this in utero, only when he was born. Sorry I didn't write that clearly. My father was 9 when he had to have a circumcision done and the Dr told my aunt that it was as a result of having a larger penis that my small cousins were having issues. I wonder however if the infection didn't come from trying to prematurely retract the foreskin, thus they knew it was tight. I never thought of that before and I wish that I had done more research two years ago. It was difficult when two doctors (one jewish so a little biased...) my husband, inlaws and extended family were pressuring me when I said we would not be doing that. I feel miserable.

[BlessedMommy2006]

Okay, well being that all of those who "needed" to be circumcised are all adults, then they were likely part of the generation where almost everyone was circ'ed. My DH was born in the Midwest in 1978 and almost all boys (or at least an extremely high percentage) were circ'ed back then.

Because of the high percentage of circ and the ignorance of doctors on the normal penis, parents of intact children were likely told to retract for cleaning, advice that we now know actually CAUSES infections, rather than prevents them.

Infections of the intact penis are rare as long as the parents leave the child's penis alone and don't try to manipulate it.

Also regarding tight foreskin, generally speaking, how would you know that a child's foreskin is tight unless you were trying to forcibly retract it? Preschoolers are supposed to have tight foreskin anyway. It's not evidence of any problem unless they are unable to urinate. Until adulthood (and even into adulthood for some men), having a tight foreskin is quite normal.

Without knowing all the ins and outs of the situation, my best guess were that those males were victims of incorrect care advice and invasive cleaning practices. If you leave your future DS's penis alone and make sure that everyone else does so and NEVER retracts him, the chances of him having those problems are very slim.

[tutucrazy]

Originally Posted by jennpn

no we didn't know this in utero, only when he was born. Sorry I didn't write that clearly. My father was 9 when he had to have a circumcision done and the Dr told my aunt that it was as a result of having a larger penis that my small cousins were having issues. I wonder however if the infection didn't come from trying to prematurely retract the foreskin, thus they knew it was tight. I never thought of that before and I wish that I had done more research two years ago. It was difficult when two doctors (one jewish so a little biased...) my husband, inlaws and extended family were pressuring me when I said we would not be doing that. I feel miserable.

There is no such thing as a "too tight" foreskin in a child. Every child has a tight fussed foreskin that has a tiny whole only wide enough for urine to pass out. This is how the body protects the developing penis from bacteria and harmful pathogens. The foreskin opening is a sphincter that only relaxes to allow urine to pass out. When a parent or care provider tries to retract an intact boy they will tear the opening of the foreskin and tear the foreskin off the glans. This results in a wound that can become infected. The boys in your family were victims of ignorant doctors.

Size has nothing to do with the matter.

Here is a helpful link about intact boys:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...893&highlight=

The only legitimate reasons to circumcise a man or boy would be in the case of frostbite, malignancy, gangrene, or serious trauma.

In the rare event that a man is not retractable by adulthood, a steroidal cream can be used to treat the man. Amputation is not necessary.

[Quirky]

There is no way on earth that you can tell a man's adult penis size from looking at a baby's penis. No way.

You can't even tell an adult male's erection size from looking at his flaccid penis. As the saying goes, some are growers and some are showers. I.e., some get bigger during erections, some stay the same size but just get hard. So some men look bigger when flaccid and others look smaller -- but pretty much there's an average size on erection.

Also, circumcision doesn't help a man with a large penis. In fact, quite the opposite -- by taking away the skin that nature has provided to accommodate his erection, you are greatly increasing the risks that his erection will be uncomfortably tight because there's not enough skin for it to grow comfortably. This can lead to skin splitting and tearing upon erection. You are also increasing the chances that scrotal hair will be pulled up onto the shaft where it doesn't belong, that you'll get bending, etc.

There is no doubt in my mind that your relatives were circumcised because of ignorant doctors giving bad advice to their parents regarding retraction and cleaning. Doubtless what happened is that the foreskin was "too tight" to retract over their "big" glans (head of the penis), when what was really going on is that the foreskin wasn't ready to retract because the opening hadn't relaxed enough yet.

This has morphed into a just-so story about having bigger penises than average and "needing" circumcision, but that's all it is, a story, a myth -- not the truth.

If you have another boy, please leave his penis whole. Whether he turns out to be well-endowed, average, or smaller than normal -- he needs his whole penis.

[LavenderMae]

I do not see how having a large penis would result in needing a circumcision. I mean it seems absurd that all males with larger than average penises would have to be circumcised, are there no males with large penises born in intact countries? And circumcision seems to be the last thing you'd want in this situation, less penile skin could be even more problematic.
I think ignorance and perhaps bragging rights is what's going on with your family, OP.

[jennpn]

I feel so incredibly ignorant right now. I didn't know until afterwards when my mother was trying to reassure me that i made the "right" choice that it was a size factor. I was saying that I should have taken the chance that he would have been fine (I have sobbed about this issue mutliple times since the occurance) she said well it looks like he does take after your fathers side of the family so gentically he may take after them with the problems they suffered (which at this point I am convinced were caused by premature retraction efforts- I am in fact not even sure why they weren't circumsized at birth, as most babies were). I asked my mother how on earth she could tell by looking at him and she said that it was a size factor. She conviced me that it made sence that perhaps the foreskin was tighter on a bigger penis. This logic sounds absurd now becuase I would think his foreskin was made FOR his penis, I am sure it fits just fine. I want to be sick. I can't believe I put my baby through this. I wasn't even there with him when this happened. He must have been terrified. If this is another boy how do I explain to these close in age brothers the difference? My arguement was that Ben should be able to make up his mind what he wants to cut off his body or not when he can make that choice, it is not my choice to make. I regret horribly giving into the pressure around me that he would thank me later and would be better off.

[BlessedMommy2006]

Originally Posted by jennpn

I feel so incredibly ignorant right now. I didn't know until afterwards when my mother was trying to reassure me that i made the "right" choice that it was a size factor. I was saying that I should have taken the chance that he would have been fine (I have sobbed about this issue mutliple times since the occurance) she said well it looks like he does take after your fathers side of the family so gentically he may take after them with the problems they suffered (which at this point I am convinced were caused by premature retraction efforts- I am in fact not even sure why they weren't circumsized at birth, as most babies were). I asked my mother how on earth she could tell by looking at him and she said that it was a size factor. She conviced me that it made sence that perhaps the foreskin was tighter on a bigger penis. This logic sounds absurd now becuase I would think his foreskin was made FOR his penis, I am sure it fits just fine. I want to be sick. I can't believe I put my baby through this. I wasn't even there with him when this happened. He must have been terrified. If this is another boy how do I explain to these close in age brothers the difference? My arguement was that Ben should be able to make up his mind what he wants to cut off his body or not when he can make that choice, it is not my choice to make. I regret horribly giving into the pressure around me that he would thank me later and would be better off.

Hugs to you mama. Everyone on this big planet makes mistakes, no one is a perfect parent. You were trying to do what was best for your little boy, now you know differently, so you will do differently.

I haven't been in the "one of each" situation but my best advice is to tell your older son that you were doing what you thought was best for him and was advised to do at the time, but later found it to be wrong advice and that's why you didn't do it to his brother.

[Yulia_R]

Originally Posted by tutucrazy

There is no such thing as a "too tight" foreskin in a child. Every child has a tight fussed foreskin that has a tiny whole only wide enough for urine to pass out. This is how the body protects the developing penis from bacteria and harmful pathogens. The foreskin opening is a sphincter that only relaxes to allow urine to pass out. When a parent or care provider tries to retract an intact boy they will tear the opening of the foreskin and tear the foreskin off the glans. This results in a wound that can become infected. The boys in your family were victims of ignorant doctors.

Size has nothing to do with the matter.

Here is a helpful link about intact boys:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...893&highlight=

The only legitimate reasons to circumcise a man or boy would be in the case of frostbite, malignancy, gangrene, or serious trauma.

In the rare event that a man is not retractable by adulthood, a steroidal cream can be used to treat the man. Amputation is not necessary.

:::

[Yulia_R]

Originally Posted by BlessedMommy2006

Hugs to you mama. Everyone on this big planet makes mistakes, no one is a perfect parent. You were trying to do what was best for your little boy, now you know differently, so you will do differently.

I haven't been in the "one of each" situation but my best advice is to tell your older son that you were doing what you thought was best for him and was advised to do at the time, but later found it to be wrong advice and that's why you didn't do it to his brother.

:

[Quirky]

Mama, you were lied to. By the doctors who have been profiting from performing circumcisions without educating parents, by the media that reports every study supporting circumcision without reporting the studies that don't support it, and by a culture that has been cutting boys for generations and has an extremely powerful, yet unconscious, motivation to continue cutting boys for social and cultural reasons.

It's getting easier to find out the truth about circumcision with the reach of the Internet but it's by no means easy. First you have to know to ask the questions......and in a culture where circumcising is normal, far too many parents don't know even to ask the questions until it's too late. As Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist said, "If a fish were an anthropologist, the last thing it would discover would be water."

Yes, it's too late to go back and make a better, informed decision for your first son. Yes, you're going to have to live with the consequences, and so will he. When he's older, you can apologize to him (in an age-appropriate way) and when he's mature enough, you can give him information on restoration and he can make his own choices about that.

But instead of spending time being angry at yourself, be angry at our culture and the doctors who took your money to cut your son without telling you the truth about what they were doing. You can channel your anger into helping educate other people about circumcision.

And you can make a different decision for this baby and any future boys....it's not too late for them! Too many parents go along with circumcising their second and later boys because they're not brave enough to go against the flow....but you can be brave and realize that two wrongs don't make a right.

[vachi73]

Two things:

1. From an "academic" perspective, it doesn't make a ton of sense that larger penises (penii?) would require circumcision - for some of the reasons mentioned above, for sure - but also, isn't it really common in adult photos/movies for the men to be, uh, large and intact? I admit that I don't have any first-hand knowledge, but I have the impression that being intact is very common among adult movie "stars" (as is being relatively more endowed). Crazy?

2. HUGS, Mama. You did what you thought was the best thing for your son. As hard as it might be, try to forgive yourself and move on. You know more now, and you can make decisions differently going forward.

[tutucrazy]

Originally Posted by jennpn

I feel so incredibly ignorant right now. I didn't know until afterwards when my mother was trying to reassure me that i made the "right" choice that it was a size factor. I was saying that I should have taken the chance that he would have been fine (I have sobbed about this issue mutliple times since the occurance) she said well it looks like he does take after your fathers side of the family so gentically he may take after them with the problems they suffered (which at this point I am convinced were caused by premature retraction efforts- I am in fact not even sure why they weren't circumsized at birth, as most babies were). I asked my mother how on earth she could tell by looking at him and she said that it was a size factor. She conviced me that it made sence that perhaps the foreskin was tighter on a bigger penis. This logic sounds absurd now becuase I would think his foreskin was made FOR his penis, I am sure it fits just fine. I want to be sick. I can't believe I put my baby through this. I wasn't even there with him when this happened. He must have been terrified. If this is another boy how do I explain to these close in age brothers the difference? My arguement was that Ben should be able to make up his mind what he wants to cut off his body or not when he can make that choice, it is not my choice to make. I regret horribly giving into the pressure around me that he would thank me later and would be better off.

I'm so sorry you were misled. We all make mistakes as parents. It is what you do after that makes the difference. You can discuss this with your older son when he reaches an appropriate age. Be honest with him. Tell him you were misled and that you are sorry this was done to him. Honesty goes a long way. Once he is older you can also make him aware of foreskin restoration which can restore some of the sensitivity. Guide your sons to have high self-esteem and confidence in their bodies. Instill genital/bodily integrity into your lives and you will raise men who will stop the cycle. You can do a lot for this cause. Having the courage to admit you made a mistake is a great inspiration and you can share this story with others. Finally, get as educated as possible about the intact boy and the harms of circumcision so you can answer questions for other parents. You can save many boys!

[nini02]

Originally Posted by BlessedMommy2006

Hugs to you mama. Everyone on this big planet makes mistakes, no one is a perfect parent. You were trying to do what was best for your little boy, now you know differently, so you will do differently.

I haven't been in the "one of each" situation but my best advice is to tell your older son that you were doing what you thought was best for him and was advised to do at the time, but later found it to be wrong advice and that's why you didn't do it to his brother.

: