What happens if you don't circumsize? - Page 2

[bugmenot]

Originally Posted by attachedmamaof3

Doing something special is news to me!!

I have two intact boys and I've never done a thing. Ever. Boys penises are made to be uncut.

I would think that having an open wound on your baby's genitals in a diaper where urine and poop are going to be would be more of a problem than an uncut penis. : Gross.

Exactly!

If the glans was meant to be exposed, wouldn't people be born that way?

Interestingly, that's what some people actually think the difference is, until they're educated about it...If only it were like that.

[paquerette]

Even if something comes up, NO retraction should take place. That would actually make an infection worse. Make sure, if there is ever a need to take your son to a healthcare professional (including any routine well visits) that they know absolutely not to make any attempt to pull the foreskin towards his body AT ALL. We can't stress this enough. There are doctors who will say "oh, I won't retract" AS THEY'RE RETRACTING. They think if they don't pull it all the way back it doesn't "count". : ANY amount of retraction can cause damage. Your best bet is to just keep anyone from touching his penis unless there's a good good reason to. When they check the testicles for descention, you can lift the penis and keep your hand over it, that can help.

[gridley13]

I have found my daughter much harder to keep clean than my intact son. He is SUPER easy to keep clean! Just wash on the outside and for now, that is it.

[phatchristy]

Originally Posted by gridley13

I have found my daughter much harder to keep clean than my intact son. He is SUPER easy to keep clean! Just wash on the outside and for now, that is it.

:

Having a boy is so much easier when it comes to cleaning .

Anyhow, I'll say I always find it so bizarre that people think there is some sort of "mysterious, complicated way" you have to clean an intact normal penis. Honestly, we're born that way, and if it was super complicated we wouldn't have survived as a species : . People are so incredible stupid and ignorant when it comes to this subject. I've heard it termed "cultural mass psychosis"...here in the US the last 2-3 generations the majority of men have been cut so now all of a sudden in the US the foreskin is something to be feared and disgusted by somehow. : So sad what the people in this country have allowed to be done to innocent little boys : .

Intact baby penises are also MUCH easier to clean that circumcised baby penises. No question about that for those of us whove babysat/changed friend's kiddos. With circumcised often you find they get poop in the abnormal folds of skin, AND on the glans in the urinary opening. It's not just a simple wipe then like it is with the intact penis. Just a recipe for disaster, and probably why circumcised babies have 8 times more problems with penile inflamation (see that new study that was just posted in this forum).

Pretty much all Europe is intact, as is most of the world. There's no more issues with intact genetalia on men than there are with intact genetalia on women....IN FACT...women have more issues with our intact genetalia. Though, of course in our country we don't cut girl parts off for something that could be treated with antibiotics/creams/etc.

Anyhow...I know you're not circing (yippie) but I wanted to share this so that you could know more to respond to the ignorant people in your lives who may say something obnoxious and ridiculous about the intact penis and its care.

[beckyand3littlemonsters]

What happens if you don't circumsize?

nothing, i don't even know anyone who has been circumcised
you just wipe to clean

[tammyswanson]

The way I feel after going to my prenatal appt today, the staff and doctors are so uncaring that I wouldn't want them touching him, let alone doing a circumcision. :

[Nathan1097]

Originally Posted by tammyswanson

I've heard that you have to 'clean' it...whatever that means! I had asked my MIL because she had 3 boys, that's what she said, but wouldnt' go into any details. She said it's less of a mess to circumsize, but I wonder. I don't want to, but do you have to do anything 'extra' with uncircumsized boys? :

My intact BF just answered this for you:

"Umm... nothing." Then after I laughed he said matter-of-factly, "Nothing happens.... Well?"

By the way, he is 47.

My personal experience with my two intact boys (9 1/2 and 5 1/2) is basically- the same. The only problem is if you get a doctor or nurse who wants to retract the boy's foreskin. That causes damage and infection- not the other way around!

[smeep]

Originally Posted by tammyswanson

The way I feel after going to my prenatal appt today, the staff and doctors are so uncaring that I wouldn't want them touching him, let alone doing a circumcision. :

: Jerks! How many weeks are you? If you're not comfortable with them, I would definitely recommend finding a new one. Midwives are (usually) great and more caring and personal...and many do hospital births if you need to or prefer to birth in a hospital.

I'm sure they all got it covered, but to reitterate. My son is intact and I clean it like I do his finger, or the way I would a healed circ'd penis. It's much harder to clean a healing circ'd penis. And by the time his foreskin retracts, I'll just teach him to pull back and rinse. To be perfectly honest, I worry more about any daughters incorrectly cleaning their vagina since that poses more "risk" than an intact penis...but of course I didn't even consider cutting off the labia even though that would make it "easier." lol

[njeb]

What happens when you don't circumcise? I ended up with two grown sons who are VERY grateful to me for leaving them intact! They know how rare that is around here.

[Yulia_R]

Originally Posted by tammyswanson

What happens if you don't circumsize?

You will have a wonderful, whole, perfect baby who avoided the horror and life long damage of circumcision because his mom was smart!

You (or anyone else) should never ever retract him. Just clean it as a finger. Make sure you make it very clear to your MIL and everybody else who may help you to bath your son or change his diaper.

Also please read this thread http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=129378 and do take it very seriously as most doctors/nurses are unbelievably ignorant about the whole foreskin issue : .

yulia.

[bandgeek]

Well, you might get odd comments from your family and friends. You might have to educate ignorant doctors and nurses about not retracting. You might be a bit shocked to see how far your toddler can stretch his foreskin. But how it affects your son...it doesn't. Like all the previous posters said, you don't do anything special. The only special thing you have to do is take care in informing people not to retract the foreskin. Other that that, there's nothing to worry about. You'll spend much more time worrying about cleaning poop out of the creases in his scrotum than worrying about cleaning his penis.

[trmpetplaya]

What will happen if you don't circumcise? You will more than likely end up with a very grateful son and future DIL (or partner-in-law?). I know my ILs ended up with both! Even if your son did decide someday to be circumcised you could remind him that at least he got the choice and that there's much less room for error on a fully grown penis. Much less chance of the doc snipping "too much" and the boy ending up as a man with a painful, tight circumcision.

The odds of him wanting it done later are very very slim though.

love and peace.

[smeep]

Originally Posted by bandgeek

You'll spend much more time worrying about cleaning poop out of the creases in his scrotum than worrying about cleaning his penis.

Isn't THAT the truth! It's a million times harder to clean the poop from THERE than to keep his penis clean. I always give it a wipe over, especially when he poops, but one out of every 10 times maybe he gets a spot of poop on his penis. But every time he gets it on his scrotum and I have to clean it out of the creases and stuff, ugh. Hey, if it's legal to circumcise, is it legal to remove their scrotum as well? : I'm serious, guys! It would make it SO MUCH EASIER TO CLEAN!!!!!

[smeep]

Originally Posted by trmpetplaya

What will happen if you don't circumcise? You will more than likely end up with a very grateful son and future DIL (or partner-in-law?). I know my ILs ended up with both! Even if your son did decide someday to be circumcised you could remind him that at least he got the choice and that there's much less room for error on a fully grown penis. Much less chance of the doc snipping "too much" and the boy ending up as a man with a painful, tight circumcision.

The odds of him wanting it done later are very very slim though.

love and peace.

With the current rates and education (compared to the rates and education of previous generations) it seems to reason that our sons have a higher chance of wishing they were left intact than wishing they'd been circumcised.

[trmpetplaya]

Originally Posted by smeep

With the current rates and education (compared to the rates and education of previous generations) it seems to reason that our sons have a higher chance of wishing they were left intact than wishing they'd been circumcised.

ITA! Especially as more and more women experience intact intercourse I predict that restoration-device companies will make a fortune once this generation grows up

love and peace.

[gurumama]

Originally Posted by Ron_Low

To be clear, NOBODY except the boy himself should ever try to retract his foreskin. This even applies to doctors and nurses who (if you're in the US) may be ignorant of the normal anatomy since many studied from anatomy texts which depicted the penis as if babies are born circumcised.

BE PREPARED to forcefully assert and insist on no forced retraction with caregivers and health professionals.

Cheers,

This is SO true. Our 5 yo had surgery on his testicles in January. At the consult, the surgeon told me he "needed" to have his foreskin retracted, that he wasn't developing "normally" (pinhole opening). She asked--in a voice that assumed my answer would be "yes"--about infections and rashes.

None, I said. In fact, less than his circumcised older brother.

That threw her for a loop. She went on to explain she could retract my 5 yo during the surgery, he'd feel no pain, blah blah blah.

We said no, drew up a document for his file (we would have switched surgeons but she's top in the region for the type of surgery needed), and made it verbally clear as well as in print that he would not be retracted. She was totally fine with it--didn't even push one bit once I told her we followed Paul Fleiss's book.

In March we told our son that if he wanted to, he could gently pull on the foreskin, to help it pull back (he had been asking about what was under his foreskin).

Three weeks ago he was in the bath and said, "Look! Mama! I found my gumdrop." The foreskin had retracted over the tip, though not fully. It was NOT like that after the surgery.

So my son's "not normal" foreskin did just fine on its own, and nature took its course (with a little help from him ).

The initial push to retract was so weird to me. Even our PCP (whom we consulted after that first urology meeting, because we were afraid she'd be a "renegade" surgeon and do it without our permission) wondered why she brought it up, when it had zero to do with our son's surgery.

So--just wash the outside, leave it alone, and research anything that doesn't sound right.

[momuveight2B]

My twins will be 10 in a few weeks. We have never done a thing. What they do with it in the shower I have no idea but they have never had a complaint of any problems.

[gardenmommy]

Thanks for the links. I haven't had time to read them, what with a one week old! I am finding it much easier to care for my son's intact penis than I did with my older son's circed penis. I always hated changing his diapers; it looked to me like it really hurt. I didn't really know better at the time, though. He was such a fussy baby, and of course now, looking back, that makes perfect sense. I'd be fussy too, if my private parts were in terrible pain.

This time, I'm noticing that nothing seems to get stuck in untoward places, and, while the babe doesn't like being changed, it's not like he's in pain, iykwim.

I didn't think that I needed to do anything special, but needed some reassurance. We don't do well-baby visits, so that isn't really an issue, either.

Thank you for your help.

[Ron_Low]

Originally Posted by gurumama

The initial push to retract was so weird to me. Even our PCP . . . wondered why she brought it up, when it had zero to do with our son's surgery.

That's nothing. My wife went into surgery to repair a severed tendon in her THUMB, and came out with a recommendation to have her breasts examined because the surgeon thought he noticed something unusual in the pre-surgical tactile exam he administered while she was UNDER.

[tammyswanson]

Apparently my MIL isn't the one to go to for that sort of info. I would have asked my own mom but she never had boys. My MIL is too much into the medical establishment as it is, she thinks that doctors know what is good for you all the time. Sigh. Now I know better! Thanks for all the info everyone, I'm so grateful for these websites! I had told my DH that I don't want to do any male genital mutilation, and he said that's fine with him too!