Significant drop in 2003 Circumcisions!

[kxsiven]

The National Center for Health Statistics has released the 2003 data for the NHDS. It shows that the 2003 circumcision rate was at a new 50 year low of 55.9%! A 4.2% drop over 2002. This is the biggest year over year drop in almost 10 years.

2003 %
Male Births 2018078 52.1%
Female Births 1857239 47.9%
Total Births 3875317

Circumcised 1128448 55.9%
Intact 889630 44.1%

The rates dropped in all 4 US regions.
NE Region -4.2%
MW Region -3.2%
S Region -6.2%
W region -1.2%

The rates also dropped significantly among both blacks and whites:
White 58.0% -6.0%
Black 62.4% -7.4%

[namith]

Excellent. I believe the major drops in black and white circ-ing means that it isn't just immigrants who never would have circ'ed in the first place. As the percentages drop, the "locker-room" argument is less and less useful.

[CherryBomb]

That's great!

[philomom]

That is good news.

[Frankly Speaking]

Actually, the circumcision rates for Hispanics, Asians, Eastern Indians and other ethnic groups in The US has been escalating rapidly and exponentially over the last decade and has actually slowed the decreasing circumcision rate significantly. Hopefully, these groups will not be taken advantage of by the medical profession and their numbers will also be turned around soon. I suspect that after they have been asked a half dozen times if they want their son circumcised, they begin to think this is something that definitely should be done. I also suspect that many of these people lack the sophisitication to deal with the constant barrage of false information plied by some medical professionals and are particularly susceptible accounting for the increases within their populations here in the states.





Frank

[LoveChild421]

This is good news!

It's so sad that

Actually, the circumcision rates for Hispanics, Asians, Eastern Indians and other ethnic groups in The US has been escalating rapidly and exponentially over the last decade and has actually slowed the decreasing circumcision rate significantly.

it makes sense that these groups are being taken advantage of- I wouldn't put it past Dr.s to not even obtain consent from these groups as they may not be as aware of their rights and their right to litigation. Misrepresenting facts along with inserting their opinions "every AMERICAN boy has this done" etc probably makes a lot of the parents let them do it against their better judgement and cultural norms... totally unethical...

[njeb]

I can definitely see how easy it would be to take advantage of recent immigrants. The same thing happens with breastfeeding. Often, new immigrants who have sucessfully bf previous children will bottlefeed those they have in the U.S, thinking that that is how they'll fit in. :
Sad, isn't it?
I'm happy, though, that the circ rate is dropping! At least we're going in the right direction.

[loving-my-babies]

Originally Posted by Frankly Speaking

Actually, the circumcision rates for Hispanics, Asians, Eastern Indians and other ethnic groups in The US has been escalating rapidly and exponentially over the last decade and has actually slowed the decreasing circumcision rate significantly. Hopefully, these groups will not be taken advantage of by the medical profession and their numbers will also be turned around soon. I suspect that after they have been asked a half dozen times if they want their son circumcised, they begin to think this is something that definitely should be done. I also suspect that many of these people lack the sophisitication to deal with the constant barrage of false information plied by some medical professionals and are particularly susceptible accounting for the increases within their populations here in the states.
Frank

wow, that is sad! I've had a different experience though, all of my hispanic friends (I am from Chile) that live here in the US agree with me that circ'ing is a weird barbaric thing... we just can't get into parents' minds to understand what makes them do it... I sort of understand it now, but at least all of my hispanic friends (all highly educated, ofcourse) all think it's just bizarre.

[Frankly Speaking]

Originally Posted by njeb

I can definitely see how easy it would be to take advantage of recent immigrants. The same thing happens with breastfeeding. Often, new immigrants who have sucessfully bf previous children will bottlefeed those they have in the U.S, thinking that that is how they'll fit in. :

I know of a perfect illustration of this.

In 1986, two boys lost their penises in two separate circumcision accidents on the same shift, same day, two different doctors at Atlanta's Northside Hospital. This was highly publicized in the local media.

You would think that this would cause a substantial reduction of circumcision procedures done at this hospital at least for a short time. However, just the opposite is true. Circumcisions actually increased after the two accidents. But, that is only part of the story. Circumcisions of white babies did decrease by a significant number but on the other hand, circumcisions of black babies increased by a number high enough to offset the decrease in white babies and show an overall gain.

To further understand this, you have to also understand that the area around Northside is predominantly white and influential and the bulk of black babies would have been born at one of the southside hospitals or at Grady Memorial in downtown Atlanta, some 20 miles away. My guestimation is that the management at Northside realized they had a crisis and that it was going to show up in their financial bottom line and started vigorously soliciting black families to circumcise and it appears that they achieved their goal and their bottom line was safe. My opinion was that black families were deemed less sophisticated and more susceptible to a "selling job" on circumcision and apparently, it worked. I estimate that the black circumcision rate had to increase at least 25%-30% and possiby more at this hospital to offset the loss of income from the reduction of white circumcisions.

I also suspect this same thing is happening with other ethnic groups and accounts for the tripple digit increases in the circumcision rate in those groups. I think this is an unethical taking advantage of those groups for greed.



Frank

[LadyWulf]

Unfortunately my DS was part of the circed statistic on there.

[wednesday]

Is the full data available online anywhere? I'm curious about more of the breakdown by different groups and regions.

[Artisan]

Do you have a link to this so I can pass it along to a friend?

[Nemmer]

Yeah, I'd be interested in a link too.

[kxsiven]

This info is very fresh off the press - These figures will fairly soon come up in nocirc and other intactivism sites with full data(and in much more user friendly form.

But meanwhile

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/hdasd/nhds.htm

You have to calculate it from the raw data files. They are available here:

ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statist...Datasets/NHDS/

[kxsiven]

P.s.

Forgot this!

Documentation is here;

ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statist...entation/NHDS/

[Ilaria]

Awesome news!!!

[calngavinsmom]

Originally Posted by LadyWulf

Unfortunately my DS was part of the circed statistic on there.

But no others will be Leigh, thats whats improtant now

Tara

[Frankly Speaking]

The devil is in the details

I just recieved some information from a resource within the movement that significantly changes this report and explains why the CDC's circumcision statistics have always been significantly higher than the ones found by the Bollinger report.

It seems that the CDC uses an archaic method of reporting the statistics that only includes the circumcision statistics for black and white boys but does not include the statistics for Hispanic, Asian and other racial groups that affect the overall total. Certainly, Hispanics are a significant influence as they will be our second largest racial group in just a few years. He has estimated that when all groups are included in the statistics, the overall total of boys circumcised will be approximately 4% lower.

This means that the actual circumcision rate when these groups are included is actually about 52% or almost exactly what I estimated the 2004 circumcision rate would be about 2 years ago and puts it about a year ahead of my original estimation. Following this same curve, the circumcision rate for 2004 will actually be very near 50% and possibly lower! I had originally estimated that the circumcision rate would fall below 50% for the first time in 2005 but it now appears that it will be well below that by the end of this year, probably something in the range of 47% - 48% and possibly lower!

I had also predicted that the actual rate of decrease in numbers of circumcisions would accelerate once we fell below about 45% but it appears the rate has already started accelerating even though we have not yet gotten to 50% and now, I suspect the rate will be in free fall from here on out.

Two years ago when I made my original predictions, I always warned that we could expect to see some ups and downs as the rate fluctuated but that it would be on a long term downward trend. I actually had little hope that the rate would actually fall below 50% even by the end of 2005 but that now seems very realistic.

Three years ago, it almost seemed that it was me against the world and to be honest, I felt very demoralized many times and at times it seemed to be a losing proposition. I just visited a midwifery site and it was energizing to see the overwhleming support there for intactness. I have seen hundreds of people join sites such as this advocating for boys. I have seen a major shift here at MDC from when this was a debate board to now as a support board for moms to learn and for support of moms who have chosen to take their whole baby home.

Mostly, I want to thank all of those who have joined in the effort and post here, talk to friends and family, contribute time, efforts and resources and all of the other things you do. I knew this movement would have a snowball effect, I just didn't expect the snowball to get this big this quick. YEE HAW !!!




Frank

[Stevie]

No Frank, Thank You!!!!