My First Time

[WaitingForKiddos]

I saw a sweet little 72 hour old baby today. Then I saw his poor mutilated penis. There are no words. His penis didn't look like any 'after' photo I've seen ...maybe because those 'after' photos are before swelling comes in? It didn't even look like a penis...just red, raw, exposed wound. The swelling was huge, disfiguring. There was still blood all around the base (?).

I have so much sorrow for these poor boys. As someone's siggy says...The more you know, the worse it is.

I just hugged Ds, so thankful he's intact and will never know that pain.

[mommyfied]

When my son was 4 weeks old we were at a 4th of July get-together where there was another baby a week or two older. When I saw her change his diaper I wanted to cry. His penis looked awful. I couldn't even imagine how much worse it had looked before. It was bright red and looked raw.

[MommytoB]

I have not seen a fresh one irl but have seen plenty of babies/kids who are circ'ed it's like saddening.

[annablue]

I saw a circ'ed baby for the first time recently (I've only ever seen intact boys) and it was so strange and saddening to me.

[craft_media_hero]

Yes, it is very sad. Once intact is the norm for you, cut is extremely disturbing.

I love our boy's perfect, intact body. I am so glad that we didn't hurt him. I recently have seen a couple of "healed" circumcised boys being diapered, and it does not look right to me! The head seems to retract into their chubby pelvic area like it's still trying to protect itself! It does not hang out exposed like my baby's. One mama said she wished she hadn't and that there was blood in his diaper for a week . . . I didn't know what to say

[brant31]

Originally Posted by craft_media_hero

it does not look right to me! The head seems to retract into their chubby pelvic area like it's still trying to protect itself! It does not hang out exposed like my baby's.

In a very real sense, that is exactly what it is trying to do. This is why so many circumcised boys seem to end up with adhesions and skin bridges. Circumcision forces the foreskin remnant to become everted, and the skin instinctively knows it is going the wrong way. Everything about an intact penis is relaxed, while a circumcised penis is tense... the mucosa that normal covers and comes in contact with the glans is unnaturally exposed, flipped, and expected to heal together with a skin part of the penis it's not normally attached to. In older boys, they have to suture this to make it "take".

Here is something I'll bet most moms (or dads) here never really thought about: it is normal, maybe even common, for circumcised boys to try to push the head down "into" the shaft, especially alone when sitting on the toilet. I was meeting with a few other guys some years ago after they had had a NOHARMM meeting, and one of them brought up that he remembered that he instinctively tried to pull the skin of his penis over the head (he is circumcised) from the time he was 2 or 3 until puberty. It wasn't very successful, but he never stopped trying. He didn't recall ever having seen an intact penis. Another guy agreed, and soon there were a half dozen guys all saying, "Yeah, yeah, I used to do that as a kid, too! Wow, I'd almost completely forgotten."

My take on it is that it's innate behavior for males to keep the glans covered, especially in childhood. The foreskin remnant is "programmed" to go forward over the glans, not back toward the scar. Eventually your body learns to live with it in this surgically altered way. Not every circumcised boy acts on it, necessarily, and almost none can articulate what "feels" wrong, but I believe most do feel subconsciously that something is amiss down there.

[Lineymom]

Seeing my nephew now 9, a year before I had my own and how awful it looked is what made me even think about it. So it probably saved my 2 ds. It is so sad... I honestly don't know how someone can look and still not see how wrong it is!

[Quirky]

I saw a circed boy today, maybe 4 months old. His glans was so purple and raw-looking. Every time I see a baby who's been circed, it makes me so sad.

[CherryBomb]

I know I watched my neighbor changer her circed newborn, and I wanted to throw up.

[dianakaye]

I've only seen one raw wound, but I just wanted to die for the baby. It just looked like they took a vegetable peeler to it. Raw exposed skin on a baby that little broke my heart. My son was just a month or two older and it made me SO glad that I didn't cave into peer pressure and have it done too.

[philomom]

My nephew cried every time he peed for month after his circ. So sad.

[NSmomtobe]

I've only ever seen one circ'd baby, and I think he was already a year old, and it still looked raw and sore to me.

ETA: And surprisingly, up until that point, I was somewhat pro-circ. It wasn't until after that, I really began questioning the practice. I had only known intact boys but only circumcised men and for some reason I didn't realize how much of a difference the procedure made until I saw the opposite.

[knitted_in_the_wom]

I think the worst thing about this is how many women I've heard describe their son's circed penis as "cute as a button" or other such terms. What in the heck is so cute about it?