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A poll: retraction

Poll Results: What age(s) did you, your significant other, your children, naturally retract?

This is a multiple choice poll
  • 3% (8)
    By age 1
  • 4% (11)
    By age 2
  • 9% (22)
    By age 3
  • 10% (24)
    By age 4
  • 5% (14)
    By age 6
  • 2% (5)
    By age 8
  • 0% (2)
    By age 10
  • 2% (6)
    By age 12
  • 1% (4)
    By age 14
  • 2% (7)
    By age 16
  • 1% (3)
    By age 18
  • 53% (127)
    Not yet (give ages in post, please!)
  • 0% (0)
    Retracted non-surgically post puberty (age please!)
  • 1% (4)
    Circumcised for 'phimosis' (ditto!)
237 Total Votes  
post #1 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:09pm
Thread Starter 
For parents of intact boys, & intact (or formerly intact : men)

I'm curious, with the nonsense doctors spew about things like 'all boys are retractile by 3' etc. I hear other parents of boys the age of mine (5 & 4) that aren't even close to retracting here all the time. In fact, I'd say from anecdote that we are a majority.

(Where ARE these kids that retract naturally at 9 months? Frankly, you'd have to rip my kids' foreskins off to forcibly retract them, & by this age they'd protest like hell & probably bite your hand off if you tried- with my blessing .)

I think- I am postulating- that all this early retractile stuff is just twaddle (as MT would say in Vax ).

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post #2 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:19pm
My son is only 9 months old and nowhere near retracting.
post #3 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:22pm
Quote:
Where ARE these kids that retract naturally at 9 months?
Probably hanging out with the kids that self wean at 9 months
post #4 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:23pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry gemelos, kids got me busy in the middle of setting up my poll! You can go back & vote.

I may just keep this thing bumped like a sticky. I want to see some NUMBERS the next time some lameass Dr suggests they ought to be retractile by age x, kwim?
post #5 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:24pm
You know, I have absolutely no idea if my ds (almost 16 ms) is "retractible" (is that a word? ...he's teething, so I'm a zombie right now) or not. It's not exactly something I "test out", you know?

I figure:
1. if he's peeing fine, and there's no outward sign of something wrong, it makes no difference what his foreskin is doing

2. if, later in his life, he's NOT retracting and it was causing him discomfort or whatever, I would hope he would mention this to dh or myself.

I'm slightly curious to see what his dr's reaction will be as he gets older. When I interviewed their office (my GP), they seemed very supportive of non-circ. But then at his 4 month (I think?) appt, she tried to retract him (I did stop her before she did anything). She's never tried it since, but I'm half expecting her to start in with the circ propaganda as he gets older and "should be" retracting.
post #6 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:24pm
Thread Starter 
PS If I wasn't clear, my nearly 6 yr old & 4 yr old are not even close.
post #7 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:28pm
My boys are 2 and 4 and neither have retracted yet...
post #8 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:31pm
Ah, it occurred to me that I would be able to tell if he was retractible because he would be doing it himself. : Sorry, like I said, sleepy!!

So my answer is no, he's not.
/waiting for my $tarbuck$ to kick in
post #9 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:40pm
Thread Starter 
Yes, I am mid-coffee, which is one reason it took me so long to set up the poll . (I only wish it was Starbucks).

I think this is a big scam, a myth! And I want to prove it- it may be unpublishable anecdotes, but all I want is enough reliable unpublishable anecdotes to give people PAUSE when the Dr says, "OK, he's 2 & he's not retracting, what are we gonna do about it?"

(If the kind of studies that say all these kids are retracting by 2 are publishable, I'd have to say the criteria for publishing is OFF, by word-of-mouth evidence & the common sense conclusions one can derive from what I'm hearing... What I'm thinking is "Yes, they are all retracting- because we retracted them". I'm deeply suspicious of what they are calling scientific method, if their results are so far from what I see as reality.)
post #10 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:49pm
I could only vote once, but both my sons could retract by age 3 or 4 (I voted 4).

They're 12 now - I can't remember that far back!
post #11 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:54pm
my son turned 3 yesterday and he can almost fully retract. there is just a tiny piece still fused (?). i know this because he always shows me when hes in the bath

my 11 m/o, obviously not but i wouldnt even know because hes never been retracted.
post #12 of 176
10/2/06 at 12:55pm
Younger ds was about 3, older ds was 11. I was told he would need to be circumcised if he didn't retract by age 7.
post #13 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:01pm
You forgot the option of "Forcibly retracted and kept going with the retraction"

My DH was forcibly retracted at birth by the nurses, and his mother was told that he had to be retracted and cleaned at each diaper change and bath. That's the information they had in 1978 Quebec....that's what my MIL did. I consider my DH darned lucky that he didn't get infected and circed at a later age due to improper (Yet proper for the time) care instructions....

Of course when he was 16, the dingus took a bet to stick his penis in a bottle of windex...

He said it felt like burning..I'd imagine...
post #14 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:21pm
My boys, ages 6 and 5, do not retract yet.
post #15 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:24pm
My little guy is 5 and doesn't retract yet.
post #16 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dynamohumm6 View Post
You know, I have absolutely no idea if my ds (almost 16 ms) is "retractible" (is that a word? ...he's teething, so I'm a zombie right now) or not. It's not exactly something I "test out", you know?

I figure:
1. if he's peeing fine, and there's no outward sign of something wrong, it makes no difference what his foreskin is doing

2. if, later in his life, he's NOT retracting and it was causing him discomfort or whatever, I would hope he would mention this to dh or myself.

Sums up my thoughts exactly. My ds is 19 mos.
post #17 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:31pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry Pandy; I didn't mean to exclude your dh; I was just wondering about natural retractions. I KNOW that people do this to kids from inaccurate information (& I want it to stop ) Hence the poll.
post #18 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:45pm
Ds is almost 4 and not retracted.
post #19 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:46pm
OMG it's so funny that this thread came up. Just yesterday my SIL told me how her DR retracted her 2 month old son and told her to do the same at every diaper change I totally freaked and told her never to do that. I thought that she knew? OMG it was terrible how she described how he pushed the forskind down forcefully with his thumbs.

Of course my stupid MIL heard all this and told me that the DR knows best and he's the one who's been to medical school and she'll believe him over stuff on the interenet. Then goes on to tell me how my son was infected down there because he wasn't retracted and of course I had to tell her for the millionth time that no, he was not infected Sometimes I can't stand my MIL :
post #20 of 176
10/2/06 at 1:50pm
Thread Starter 
OK , Seventy-one people have viewed this poll & there are not seventy-one votes. Vote, people! (It's private; neither I nor anyone else can see who voted what.)

(Scary thought; maybe so many people it's not applicable for, even here? )
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