Penile adhesion after circ, help??

[BradleysMom21710]

My sons is 3 weeks old and was circumcised two days after birth usuing the plastibell method. The cap fell off in 6 days and at his 1 week appointment the pediatrician said it looked fine and was healing well. I have been gently pulling the skin back completely to clean it each day and didn't notice anything odd until 3 days ago. The little bit of foreskin is starting to reattatch onto the glans of his penis, I tried to pull it back gently but it seems stuck and I do not want to hurt him by pulling it off forcefully. I was not told that he needed any extra care once the cap fell off and I am now very concerned that his penis will not be normal. I will be calling his pediatrician tomorrow but am freaking out a little and would like some advice from someone who has gone through something similar. IS there anything I can do to help it on my own? Is it something I did wrong? Any help? I am a new mom and do not know much about penile adhesions.

[balancedmama]

Welcome to MDC.

Your pediatrician would probably advise you to continue to force the foreskin back.

Around here, most mamas (including myself) feel strongly that all babies should be given the benefit of genital integrity. Therefore, routine infant circumcision is not supported.

I guess my own personal advice would be to leave his penis alone, and not cause further damage beyond what has already been done. For my own intact son, there is not a bit of extra care - we just clean his penis like a finger, and never retract him.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Leave it alone and for heavens sake dont let the Dr. yank it apart either. The more you do this the more feeling he is going to loose because of scare tissue.

[Bea]

Journal of Urology

The article's conclusions:

Penile adhesions develop after circumcision and the incidence decreases with patient age. Although there is debate on whether to lyse (separate) these adhesions manually, our findings suggest that adhesions resolve without treatment. Based on our results we do not recommend lysing penile adhesions, except perhaps those involving the circumcision line.

I'd avoid the Dr. personally. I'd bet a months wages the first thing he does is rip the adhesion apart which will hurt like a ***** and then the remaining foreskin will reattach itself as the penis tries to heal the damage.

Unless you want to spend the next x years doing this and having your sons mind connect penis=pain, I'd leave well alone.

[wolfmom]

Thank you so much for linking to that article Bea!!! I have a 3 year old who has some adhesions and was really leaning toward letting them be until he is much older. We had my older son's adhesions fixed and it went well (done with anesthesia - wouldn't do it any other way!) but I was thinking that it might just resolve on it's own and if it didn't, then he could decide if he wanted it fixed. I think that just made up my mind for good!

Thanks again!

[Llyra]

OP, welcome to MDC. I agree with the others that leaving it alone sounds like the right thing to do, but I would encourage you to do some research on your own to make an informed decision. I just googled "penile adhesions after circumcision" myself, and found a mixed bag of advice ranging from "leave it alone and it resolves," to recommending steroid cream, to "get the pediatrician to re-circumcise." Those seem to be the ideas floating around on the mainstream, and the ones you're most likely to hear from most pediatricians. The alternative view, the one you're most likely to hear here on MDC, is the viewpoint of the other posters (and my own) which is that enough damage has been done, and that leaving it alone at this point is the best thing to do.

If you're really concerned you might ask on Finding Your Tribe (another forum on MDC, further up the main page) where you can talk to people who live in your area and find a pediatrician or family doctor with some real knowledge of care of intact penises, care of complications with circumcision, etc, who can take a look at your child and advise you.