To CalenandEllasmomma (and anyone else!)

[Chiroalltheway]

CalenandEllasmomma, I tried to pm you but it said you had exceeded your stored pm quota and couldn't accept further messages. Sooo, I'm posting this to everyone who might have advice for me.

Thank you for that story!!!! I wish I had read it 2 years ago!!!!!!!! We, too, had our first son circumcised without much thought. When I was pregnant with our 2nd, I did a lot of research, simply b/c i had met a friend whose children were intact (I hadn't even heard of thought of not circumcising before then!!) Anyway, we did not circumcise our ds2, but i have a question...

ds1 had his penis forcibly retracted by a DO about a month and a half ago. he said it had grown back and needed to be retracted (ripped!!! hello!!!) i, once again, didn't know any better and hadn't done my homework, so the DO went about his business, and i sat there with my wailing son : ugh, i hate even saying all of this. my question to you is this...my son also begs us not to clean his penis at diaper changes, b/c he's so sensitive (and i am guessing it still hurts every time we retract it to clean it.)

Should we even be doing this??????? I know I need to read up on it as well as get your thoughts, but I don't even know where to look!! (any ideas for books, websites, etc.??) Should he be in pain? Should we be retracting to clean it and to make sure it doesn't grow back??! It does get that white, cheese stuff in there sometimes, so it also makes me nervous NOT to retract and clean it. Please give me your advice and anywhere else I can look. I value your opinion because of your experience. Once again, thank you for sharing your story. I am positive you will save penises and save mothers' hearts. Please pm me when you get a chance!!

(or other moms, please reply here!! THANK YOU)

[savienu]

That "white cheese stuff" is smegma, and it's supposed to be there in intact boys. Circs today are "looser" than those in the past, so this seems to be a pretty common issue of it "growing back over" as your DS1's did. All the information I've heard is the same as it is for intact boys- leave it alone. Forcibly retracting can actually cause more damage than what was already done by the circ itself. It should work itself out as he gets older, same as your intact son will gradually become retractable. If I'm wrong on any of this, someone please correct me!

[fruitful womb]

So sorry for what your going through.

Please, Please DON'T RETRACT the skin he has left!
It will separate on its own, thats why your seeing the smegma which naturally occurs in intact boys. Intact girls have this too.

That Dr. is a major UA violation! His outdated information is hazardous to his practice and DANGEROUS to his patients!

I would inform the Dr. that ripping apart adhesions is not only causing unnecessary trauma to the child but harming him, creating further future complications that are otherwise avoided if left alone. I'll see if I can pull up documents for you to send him. In a rush right now.

Holy jimminy cricket! That poor boy!!!:
Hang in there mama.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Your poor little guy Please stop retracting him it causes scare tissue build up and can lead to your son suffereing even more loss of sensitivity. Here are some links on the subject of adhesions.

Adhesions: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Adheasions: http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/adhesions.htm

Adhesions: http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/ponsky2/

Adhesions: http://www.kidsgrowth.com/resources/...il.cfm?id=3420

Adhesions: http://www.medem.com/medlb/article_d...NC&sub_cat=474

Adhesions: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weekl...l_adhesion.htm

Adhesions: http://www.henryfordhealth.org/19160.cfm

Adhesions: http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html

Adhesions: http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/persad/

They all say the same thing leave it alone and let the body heal. If in the future there are skin bridges your ds can choose to have them fixed or leave them there.

Please dont let the Dr. touch your son any more mama.

Smegma is the greek word for soap if you look close at the end of the day around your clitoris folds you will see it on you All it is is dry skin cells that have came off mixed with body oil a good swish in the tub is all that is required.

[Microsoap]

: It irritates the hell out of me that a doctor would use the words "it grew back" to describe the situation!!!! If foreskin actually grew back, I'm positive circumcision wouldn't have gotten past the first 100 years, since it'd be severely painful and damaging to be circ'd every few years for the rest of your natural life! Why not call it what it is-- a reattachment?

[Chiroalltheway]

I Cannot Thank You All Enough!!!!

Oh, thank God. I will never ever again retract my son's penis. I can't wait to tell him in the morning when I change his diaper that "mommy will never pull it back again!!" hahaha I'm so giddy. I can't believe how uneducated I was. Praise the Lord we didn't circ our ds2. i just hope ds1 is okay and hasn't lost any sensitivity or been scarred emotionally. i intend to be very gentle, loving, ask for lots of forgiveness, etc. over the next few weeks. maybe we'll have a "welcome back" party for his "little guy." Again, thank you for all being so honest, open, and educating (and not condemning!!!!) I plan on condemning myself enough as it is!

[fruitful womb]

Originally Posted by MCatLvrMom2A&X

Your poor little guy Please stop retracting him it causes scare tissue build up and can lead to your son suffereing even more loss of sensitivity. Here are some links on the subject of adhesions.

Adhesions: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Adheasions: http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/adhesions.htm

Adhesions: http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/ponsky2/

Adhesions: http://www.kidsgrowth.com/resources/...il.cfm?id=3420

Adhesions: http://www.medem.com/medlb/article_d...NC&sub_cat=474

Adhesions: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weekl...l_adhesion.htm

Adhesions: http://www.henryfordhealth.org/19160.cfm

Adhesions: http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html

Adhesions: http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/persad/

They all say the same thing leave it alone and let the body heal. If in the future there are skin bridges your ds can choose to have them fixed or leave them there.

Please dont let the Dr. touch your son any more mama.

Smegma is the greek word for soap if you look close at the end of the day around your clitoris folds you will see it on you All it is is dry skin cells that have came off mixed with body oil a good swish in the tub is all that is required.

Wow MCatLvrMom2A&X you really went to town! This is way more than I was planning on providing. To be honest I didn't have any of this bookedmarked. lol I do now! I was going to research and give you what I came up with!

I wonder about this site:
http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weekl...l_adhesion.htm

Eventually, you may notice a white substance (smegma) coming out and forcing these adhesions apart on their own. If this happens, you can usually try to gently separate the adhesions and apply vaseline to the irritated area that has separated so that it doesn't become reattached.

I still don't think you should try separating the skin from the glans. But there is some controversy on weather the vaseline should be applied after unnatural, forceful separation was done to the child. Which is why it shouldn't be done in the first place. When this happens to an intact child its called synectomy. Not good.

If a child's penile adhesions don't go away on their own or if a parent wants to treat a child with extensive adhesions, one study recently has shown that applying a prescription steroid cream to the area three times a day for three weeks resulted in clearing the adhesions in almost 80 percent of infants. This makes sense when you consider that uncircumcised children that have a phimosis, in which their foreskin doesn't retract, are often successfully treated with topical steroid creams.

No, this makes NO sense because you can't dx phimosis in a child! Phimosis is an ADULT concern. The foreskin of almost all boys isn't fully retractable until he reaches puberty and sometimes not until he becomes an adult. This is due to the fact hormones aids the natural separation. The hormonal process facilitates a retractable foreskin. So when you consider the uncircumcised child, never retracting the foreskin and given the information above, the remaining foreskin on a circumcised child will behave the same way. This is why leaving adhesions alone is the best course of action.

So sorry for the rant. Not against you, just a minor problem I had with this one site.

And I had a question about this one:
http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/ponsky2/

CONCLUSIONS: Penile adhesions develop after circumcision and the incidence decreases with patient age. Although there is debate on whether to lyse these adhesions manually, our findings suggest that adhesions resolve without treatment. Based on our results we do not recommend lysing penile adhesions, except perhaps those involving the circumcision line.

Lysing penile adhesions sounds incredibly painful to me. I could be entirely mistaken, but isn't lysing a surgical procedure? Forcefully separating the skin even along the circumcision line is what causes scar tissue to develop and SKIN BRIDGES?

Ok, I don't mean to nit pik your sites. Great sites! Just wondering about those two is all.

~FW

[fruitful womb]

Nevermind, overlooked it. "lyse these adhesions manually". Its not surgical.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Your right on that one site. I must have overlooked that in my inital reading. Thank you for pointing it out. Unfortunatly so many old studies get mixed into the new ones sometimes I think I will remove that particular link since it is outdated.

I am not sure why they say possibly do it on the circ line : maybe they are meaning if it is so bad it is bending the penis sideways or something. But either way the overwhelming majority say to just leave it alone and let it heal.

I have a wordpad document with all my links labeled so that I can just copy and paste when needed. That way if my pc were to conk out on me I wont loose tons of bookmarks and research. (I have everything on a back up disk)

[guestmama9908]

Sorry I am so late coming here! :

I was out of town and didn't find out about this until this morning.

I 100% agree with everyone else here. Leave it alone and he will be fine.

My son's adhesions have resolved on their own now, almost a year later. I am so relieved we didn't continue to cause him further pain.

I'm so sorry your ignorant DO caused your son pain!

to you and your little one

[QueenOfThePride]

I'd also like to point out that smegma is the same thing as vernix, and is completely harmless. It does not cause infections.