I wonder how many boys are subject to unnecessary circs

[lawmama1984]

Because of the ignorance of doctors? And what can be done to counteract this ignorance? Now that the circ rate is going down, will medical school education include discussion on the development of the normal, intact male genitalia? It needs to, and is there anything we can do as laypeople as far as petitioning the authors of these textbooks to include this information?

A little background on why I'm asking. I've had a pretty trying 24 hours. Yesterday afternoon and evening, I notice that my son's penis has become very swollen and red. He was also acting like it was hurting him--not too much, but occasionally he would stop playing and fuss and grab it. I didn't really know what it was or what to do, so I gave him an Epsom salt bath and ibuprofen. The swelling and redness didn't go down, so we scheduled an appointment with his after hours pedi clinic. I was already on guard b/c they mentioned cathing him--after some of the stories I read on here, I did NOT feel comfortable with a cath, I would prefer to catch with a bag or catch it myself in a cup. Well, he hadn't peed since 6:30 PM last night and his appt was at 8:20AM (he also wasn't drinking as much, even though we were encouraging it).

First thing the doc (not his regular pedi) says when she walks in is "is he circumcised?" Uhoh I think to myself, here we go. So she has me sit him on my lap, which I'm happy about b/c it makes it easy to slap retracting hands away. So she notices the swelling and redness and says that looks more like a skin infection than a UTI and she proceeds to kind of try to look in his foreskin (without retracting) to see if they could get a sample. She then comments on how tight his foreskin is (I tell her of course! He's not retractable at all yet) and how we can't use a urine sample I catch in a cup or with a bag b/c they can't be sure where the sample is coming from (ummmm, his penis right???) and they would need a cath. I said I'm not comfortable with a cath at all--only as a last resort if he hadn't peed soon, so we agreed to just treat it like a skin infection. She then mentions how I need to call my regular pedi tomorrow and will probably need a referral to a urologist and a circ. WHAT?!?!?! For a skin infection? So, my pregnant hormones go into overload-- I am so upset, and all that keeps going through my head is what everyone here says: "Circ is only required for frostbite, gangrene and some types of cancer."

So, obviously, this doctor has no clue, right? So, luckily, I'm hooked into the natural birth community here and I have midwives with intact sons--i emailed one of them and asked her what she thought and to her it sounded like normal separation trauma (besides the not peeing, but that has since resolved itself since I took her advice). She suggested tea tree oil and ibuprofen to make him more comfortable if necessary. Well, needless to say, I googled separation trauma and those are my son's symptoms to a tee. It's normal and nothing to freak about--certainly no reason to circ! So, I took her advice and my son is napping comfortable and has been peeing normally since.

But what about those parents who don't have foreskin knowledgeable people in their lives? Or don't think to go beyond what their doc says? Because I'm on here, I knew what this doctor said was complete nonsense, but I am a first generation intactivist and without this board and my midwives, I'd be lost. I'm sure there is info about separation trauma in the stickies, but what about people who never find this board, or who lurk but don't see it in the stickies. I'm a regular here, but I hadn't seen the stickie on separation trauma (to be fair, I didn't come look through the stickies last night when his symptoms flared).

I guess this is half venting, half thankful that I have people in my life who know wth is going on. But it makes me so angry that some parents are pressured to circ by ignorant docs. How unfair to these boys to lose their foreskin simply because knowledge of the normal genitalia of young boys is not deemed important enough to be discussed in med school. SMH

[dmpmercury]

I was just thinking the same thing. It bothers me how in this country we think of the foreskin as a ticking time bomb of infection. Boys get a lot less infection than females regardless of circumcision status yet we don't think the same about girls. I hear so many people that know someone had to get circumcised later in life and how traumatic it was. How traumatic can it be when you are aware it is happening and have proper pain relief. Why is that so terrible and a newborn getting circumcised is nothing.

It so sad how people think they are dirty, hard to clean, prone to infection and cancer when it isn't true. It is sad that doctors still retract boys or reccomend circumcision at the drop of a hat and then everyone thinks that you have a good chance to need one anyway. In Finland the rate is 1 in 17,000. I wish it could be like that here.

If in the rar case a boy was getting chronic infections I wish it would be explored further like we do with girls that get chronic infections instead of reccomending circumcision.

These myths are so widespread and people don't really believe when you tell them it isn't true. I try to spread the word but I feel like I'm getting no where sometimes.

[MyBoysBlue]

My little brother ended up circed at 6 years old. Because he had injured himself with the toilet seat at 2 years old, my parents assumed that he had been damaged by that accident and that was the reason he was still not retractable at 6. So when the doctors told them he needed to be circed, because he should be retractable by that age(according to the doctor), they just went along with it assuming the doc know what he was talking about. He had no infections or other problems it was just the fact he was not retractable. We will never know for sure but my suspicion is that if he had been left alone he would have eventually been retractable and if there were some skin bridges or such from the accident he could have then had them release if they were a problem. But most likely there was no problem at all.

[serendipity22]

A Danish study found that only 50% of 10 year olds were fully retractable.

Not only have US doctors circed because a boy is not retractable by an arbitrary age (even in infancy in some cases) but no doubt for normal separation events. Including:

ballooning

smegma pearl (white lump during seperation)

a little bit of redness at the tip

Also:
a small urethral opening (they are all small, its a sphincter)

"excessive or redundant" foreskin

and all rge other creative diagnoses

[Crunchy Frog]

My guess is that the vast majority of them in this country are the product of medical ignorance.

I hope you will write a letter to that doctor on what you learned about what was actually going on with your son. Let her know that he is fine and that you are not following up with a urologist. Maybe she can be educated.

[Arduinna]

I'd say that virtually 100% of circs are unnecessary.

[So-Called]

I saw a FB post the other day from someone who was getting her son circumcised because the doctor told her his foreskin was too tight. He had no infections, no issues, no difficulty urinating, just a too-tight foreskin that was never going to retract and was bound to cause problems for him later.

The boy's age? 9 months.

[jenP]

I'm thinking of the "trickle-down" circumcisions caused by this ignorance, too. For example, Mom A has a baby and, not wanting to cause him unnecessary pain, instinctively refuses circumcision. But then, she doesn't know anyone else who didn't circ and hasn't found boards like this for information. So, when her doctor tells her the boy "has to" be circumcised for something later on... say he has rash, or a yeast condition on his skin, or isn't retractable by whatever age, or has a uti... you know, whatever trumped up reason the doctor tells her... and since there is no one she knows to call the doctor on the B.S., she has the son circumcised believing it was necessary.
Then she tells her sister about it.
Later her sister has a baby boy and decides to have him circumcised at birth, because her sister "didn't circumcise her baby and he just had to have it done later."
And then that sister tells her pregnant neighbor all about how it's better to circ a newborn...."because my sister tried to leave her boy uncircumcised and he just had all these problems and HAD to be circumcised later..."
and so it continues...

Jen

[lawmama1984]

Originally Posted by jenP

I'm thinking of the "trickle-down" circumcisions caused by this ignorance, too. For example, Mom A has a baby and, not wanting to cause him unnecessary pain, instinctively refuses circumcision. But then, she doesn't know anyone else who didn't circ and hasn't found boards like this for information. So, when her doctor tells her the boy "has to" be circumcised for something later on... say he has rash, or a yeast condition on his skin, or isn't retractable by whatever age, or has a uti... you know, whatever trumped up reason the doctor tells her... and since there is no one she knows to call the doctor on the B.S., she has the son circumcised believing it was necessary.
Then she tells her sister about it.
Later her sister has a baby boy and decides to have him circumcised at birth, because her sister "didn't circumcise her baby and he just had to have it done later."
And then that sister tells her pregnant neighbor all about how it's better to circ a newborn...."because my sister tried to leave her boy uncircumcised and he just had all these problems and HAD to be circumcised later..."
and so it continues...

Jen

This exactly is what worries me. I mean, it's great that circ rates are going down, but we have to KEEP them down. We need more easily accessible info out there for parents that deals with issues outside of infancy that may arise like separation trauma that otherwise would be alarming.

Btw, my son's penis is FINE today. No redness at all and the swelling is just about 100% gone, just like it should be.

I'm so sad for that poor 9 month old. As I said, my son's is still very tight. And it's supposed to be--it keeps things out of his penis that shouldn't be in there!!

[hakunangovi]

I hope and encourage you to go back and attempt to educate that doctor, because, as you said, many parents are not nearly so savvy. That woman has likely caused hundreds of little boys to loose their foreskins un-necessarily.

[lawmama1984]

Yes, I definitely need to write a letter or somehow touch base. I also plan to discuss this with his regular pedi.

[Contrariety]

Originally Posted by Arduinna

I'd say that virtually 100% of circs are unnecessary.

Mmm-hmm!

[minkajane]

DS could easily have been one of those "had to be circ'd later" kids. He kept getting these raw patches on his groin and we couldn't figure out what it was. At one point, he got a patch on his foreskin and it got a little inflamed. He was still able to pee just fine. I took him to the ped hoping to be able to figure out what was causing the patches. She took one look at his penis and said, "If this happens again, he'll need a circumcision." Without even knowing what it was! She then tried to bully me into oral abx AND abx cream. I said I'm not giving abx without culturing to see what it was and she flat-out refused to culture it, saying there was "nothing to culture." SO WHAT ARE WE TREATING?

I walked out with the abx cream, but decided to do some looking on the internet before I gave it to him. I came across a page that suggested that yeast infections could sometimes cause this type of reaction. I bought some Monistat and put it on the patches and guess what - they went away! He was getting repeated yeast infections from a strawberry allergy.

So if I had agreed, not only would he have "had" to be circ'd later, he would have had a yeast infection on top of it! And imagine how bad things would have gotten if I had given him the oral abx!