Circumcision?

[MAMom]

I don't think anyone has broached this topic yet in this due date club, but I'd like to encourage anyone who is planning on, or even considering, circumcision to visit "The Case Against Circumcision (http://www.mothering.com/discussions/forumdisplay.php?f=44)" forum on MDC.

There are many wonderful resources on that forum, including "stickys" with additional web resources if you need to do further research on why NOT to circumcise.

85% of the world's men are intact, and more are being left intact each year. NO medical organization in the world, including the AAP, recommends routine infant circumcision. The foreskin is an integral part of the male anatomy that was intended to be there for many, many reasons! Function of the Foreskin (http://research.cirp.org/func1.html)

Would you have your daughter's gentials amputated/mutilated??? Then why even consider doing that to your son?

Please, leave your little boys intact!!!
___________________________________
SAHM to a spectacular little boy, born 5/2003 :bf:xnocirc: :+ Feb 2006!
"When you teach your son, you teach your son's son." ~ The Talmud
A Chat About Circumsision (http://oknocirc.blogspot.com/)

[charmcitymama]

If we have a boy we will not circ, but, I am honestly afraid of it all. I have never seen an uncirced penis, much less how to care for it and I will choose to not think about it any more until we know that we are having a boy. And if we find out we're having a boy then I will have a lot of questions!

[My Three Boys]

Oh Charmcitymama - It's really easy to take care of!! You don't do anything to it!!!

Unfortunately, we had our first ds before I realized that we even needed to make that decision. So, when he was born, of course he was circumcized. We brought him home and when I saw it, I absolutely broke down. It was awful. They told me it didn't hurt him (they LIED!). The wound was awful and I made my dh change his diapers until it healed. But, I still hate it when people use the word mutilated to describe circ. I feel terrible about it and we didn't circ our other two boys, but that word really hurts. We made the best decision with the information we had at that time. We made different decisions with our other children because we had better information.

Our son who is circ'd has had more problems than the uncirc'd ones (and they've had none!).

[*violet*]

Don't worry Charmcitymama, or anyone else considering circumcising because they don't know what to expect. Nothing to it!! Never had any issues of any kind with ds (who is un-circed).

There are many, many, many reasons not to circ (you can find all of them on MDC), but for me when ds was born the thing that hit home the most was that this baby, this sweet, tiny, wonderful little baby was made perfect just as he was. Perfect.

[april77]

I'd been nervous about having the circ discusion with dh since we found out this baby is a boy. A couple of days ago I finally asked him if he wanted to circ the baby - he looked at me like I'd grown another head and was just like -"no, why would we do that." I'm so relieved, we'd really never talked about the issue before. A few moms at my playgroup had the dads pushing for circ, the whole I want him to look like me thing, and I really didn't know how dh felt.

[danav]

Noah is intact and we will not be circumcizing the new baby, either.

Charm - there is NOTHING to be afraid of or anxious about!! As for how to care for an intact penis, that's easy - you don't do ANYTHING! :) Leave it alone and NEVER try to retract the foreskin. Just wash the outside of it like any other body part. We have never had any issue with messy baby poop getting in it, infections, or anything like that.

It (the foreskin) will be very tight at the opening in the early months and years, with a tiny hole at the end. When he is old enough to "discover" it himself, he will naturally play with it and it will begin to retract on it's own. Noah went through a phase this past summer when he had his hands down his pants ALL the time (apparently normal for 3 year old boys :LOL ). One day when changing him after swimming, I noticed his foreskin is now retracting almost all the way (he had a little erection - which is also VERY normal for baby/toddler boys, in case you didn't realize that). Once that happens, usually by age 3 or so, you can begin to teach them to gently pull it back and wipe the penis off with a washcloth in the bath, but that's all there is to it. Really!

By the way, DH is circumsized. When we looked into the subject during my first pregnancy and realized there is now evidence that there is no medical reason to circumcize, DH was totally on board with leaving our son(s) intact. If either of the boys ever question why their penises are slightly different from Daddy's, all we need to tell them is that when Daddy was born his parents made what they thought was the best decision for him at that time, based on the information they had...and by the time we became parents of boys we had more information and knew that the best thing to do was to leave them intact. No big deal, IMO.

[aguacates]

Dh's circumcision got infected in the hospital and he almost died when he was a week old. So Dh is pretty adamant about not circ'ing. Thank goodness.

[Erin+babyAndrew]

we don't circ either :)

[Sleepymama]

When we first found out DS was a boy I was pretty sure I didn't want to circ, but did some research and was even more convinced. However, I wasn't sure how dh would react (he is circ'd as most of his generation is). So I told him that since I didn't have a penis, and he did, he should make the decision. I did this knowing that if I sent him enough anti-circ information, he would make the right decision and think it was his decision :lol He wasn't adamantly in favor of one way or the other at first, but now he's very anti-circ too. And then after ds was born, there was no way after seeing our baby's chest sliced open that we would let anyone touch his penis!

We have only had one issue--UTI a couple months ago, cleared up with antibiotics and not recurring since.

Changing an intact boy is easy--just wipe and go! I'm nervous about changing a little girl--how do you make sure you got all the folds clean? And wipe front to back? Eek!

[~lioneyes~]

My DH has kinda balked at the issue, so I decided to drop it until we find out the sex. The other day, I heard that only 40%of males in the US are circ'd. When I told him this, he was like, wow really?! If I educate him, I am sure he will see it my way! I am no more worried about taking care of an uncirc'd penis than I am of a circ'd one. I'm just scared of the projectile peeing while changing!!

[charmcitymama]

Thanks for the reassurance. :)


I'm nervous about changing a little girl--how do you make sure you got all the folds clean? And wipe front to back? Eek!

Now this is something that still worries me, but, obviously we've done ok, as my dd is 2! I just don't like to deal with other people's private parts that much...I know crazy since um, you just have to as a parent. :nut
It is pretty simple though, just make sure you can't see any poop and give baths at least every other day.

[Sleepymama]

I'm just scared of the projectile peeing while changing!!

oh, projectile pee is easy. It doesn't even smell--baby pee is like water. Projectile poop and puke OTOH...

[danav]

Changing an intact boy is easy--just wipe and go! I'm nervous about changing a little girl--how do you make sure you got all the folds clean? And wipe front to back? Eek!

See, I thought changing a boy after having a girl first was SO weird! With a girl, you just make sure to wipe in between everything and it all stays right where it is. With a boy, it all squishes around when you wipe it and I was afraid I was going to hurt him! LOL


Lioneyes - actually, I think that intact boys have LESS projectile peeing. Noah almost NEVER peed on me (maybe a handful of times as an infant). Intact penises hang down and pee downward, while circ'd ones are shorter and tend to point up/out more, therefore increasing the risk of the pee shooting right at you!! :LOL

[EmMomof6]

I have 3 boys, all intact and have never had any problems. When we were expecting our first boy (2nd baby) luckily I had a wonderful midwife who gave me all kinds of info to read about circumcision. Those were the days before internet and these wonderful forums. :LOL If I didn't get that info, I don't think I would have thought twice about circumcising because I didn't know the "cons" of it. At first, dh was against leaving our son intact, because dh is circumcised and was afraid of how different it looked. But, after he read the info my midwife gave me he was convinced. Circumcising our other sons was never an issue after that. :thumb

[EmMomof6]

About changing girls vs. boys: I find it easier to change girls! The boys "equipment" always gets in the way when cleaning up BM's, yuck! :flipped

[katja]

I never even knew about circumcision until I was 20 and I started dating someone who was uncircumcised. I realized right away that there was no good reason to circ. After 2 years with him, circumcised penises looked obscene and mutilated to me. Anyhow, dh is circed, but before I married him I made sure he was with me on this. (No circ for any sons.) I do think circed men are missing out on a few things. Luckily, most of them don't know what they are missing.

[AndiG]

April, if you are talking to any of the women at play group who feel like they are being pressured to circ ' so they look like Daddy' YOu could recount my favourite anti circ anticdote of all time.
Woman doesn't want to circ, man does, Woman asks why. Man says so he'll look like his daddy. Woman quipps "Well, should we shave his head bald his whole life too because believe me that's the head most people are going to be seeing and most concerned with for about 95 of his time."
I love that idea. Just to me, Dana's explanation is the best. That is where we were too, Grandma and Granpa did what they thought was right. We are doing what we think is right, its not something we need to do.

[momma_andi]

At first my dh didn't want our son to look different from his dad. Once I did more research and was able to inform/educate him on the process, he finally saw it my way. So if we have a boy, we will not be circ'ing.

[Past_VNE]

About getting peed on; we have a whole thread about it over HERE (http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=344351).

It seems to be split about 50/50. My intact boy peed on my like a friggin' firehose! In the thread, we came up with all sorts of theories on why it did or didn't happen, but then someone would come on and debunk each one. It seems like, "Each baby is different."

[melissa_honeybee]

Just wanted to chime in here, even though I'm in the Oct '05 club. Intact boys are so easy to care for! We never had to do anything special. Also- When I was preggie with #1, I ordered some no-circ pamphlets showed them to DH...not only did it make him want to keep our DS intact, but he wanted reconstructive surgery for himself, cuz he was mad his parents had him circ'ed!

My son doesn't even notice the difference, and really, how often will they be "comparing"?

[MelissaEvans]

If baby's nose is different, I wouldn't take him to a plastic surgeon and I see a lot more noses in family pictures than penises; maybe that's just my family though. :wink I figure if it's so important for baby to look like dad, then dad can restore. =) www.norm.org. It seems to make more sense for dad to heal from his trauma than to inflict it on a new generation. Penn and Teller did a Bullshit! show on it, it was pretty cool. The other comment I hear a lot is that dad has the parts, so he gets the say. Well, if dad was cut, then he doesn't know what it's like to be whole; most women in this country aren't missing any of their genitals, so I'd say they would know better what's to be missed. Besides, I don't think anyone around here would consider amputating the hood of their daughter's clitoris, and that's the biological equivelant. Why only alter a boy's privates? I remember when my brothers were born, both circ'd. When the oldest came home and mom explained what had happened, my first thought was "wow, I'm glad I'm a girl!" There was my first lightbulb on the topic. =)