need resources for a friend

[kythryne]

A few days ago I was visiting with one of my best friends, and during a diaper change she noticed that my son is intact and asked me for advice. Her son is four years old and uncircumcised, and evidently his pediatrician is freaking out because he's not retractable and trying to scare her with horror stories of what could happen if his foreskin doesn't retract soon.

I of course told her to refuse to let anyone attempt to retract him and assured her that it's normal for him to be non-retractable at this age, and promised to get her some solid medical info to take with her at their  next appointment since she otherwise loves her pediatrician and doesn't want to switch to someone else.

…the only problem is that I have a newborn and am too tired to hunt up what I want to send her! Help?

She's much more mainstream than I am, and is going to a very mainstream pediatrics practice, so I need something that's specifically aimed at educating doctors in a non-confrontational manner. She said that she really doesn't want to "have" to circumcise him, but I know she tends to trust doctors more than I do, and I'm afraid that if she isn't able to educate her doctor he'll succeed in either forcing a retraction or talking her into circumcising him.

Thanks in advance! 

[Lauren82]

There are a lot of resources about this. Here are some to get you started:

http://www.drmomma.org/2010/01/basic-care-of-intact-child.html

http://www.drmomma.org/2009/08/protect-your-uncircumcised-son-expert.html  <---written by Dr. Paul Fleiss

http://www.nocirc.org/publish/4pam.pdf

http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/pdf/2008-03retractileforeskinleaflet.pdf  <-------- From doctors opposing circumcision. Has great info backed up with references. I like this one the best.

[PlainandTall]

I think every parent of an intact child should have the CIRP library bookmarked. This website archives actual medical journal articles so you can read for yourself the info that doctors (are supposed to) have.

This doctor is implying that her 4 year old son has phimosis because his foreskin is non-retactile.  This is a false diagnosis of a normal stage in child development.

http://www.cirp.org/library/treatment/phimosis/ 

I think she should pay particular attention to this study done by Oster-

http://www.cirp.org/library/general/oster/