[Equuskia]

I was at the lab getting my blood drawn for my ob panel. A boy comes in, about 8 yo maybe, to have his blood drawn. Since I've been going to that lab for almost 12 years now, the staff knows me well, and the lab tech asks if I wanted to go first, to show him it doesn't hurt. (It really doesn't hurt me at all, and she's very gentle. My 2 yo doesn't even cry with her). I had no problem and she preps me. She was conversing with the mother of the child, and the mother was telling the tech that her son was having fainting spells again. I was half paying attention when I heard her say that they had started up again after she had her son circed at 8 months. She commented that the other day, he tripped and fell on an inflatable mattress, and and kinda fell wrong on his leg, and he passed out. Apparently this is common for him, and she says that he doesn't tolerate pain at all. When it was his turn, the screams were blood curdling. Even scared my dd a little. I've heard kids cry when getting their blood drawn, but this was....very different. He was shrieking. I felt really really sorry for him, because no kid should have to live in fear of pain. The tech gave him a little doll and he came out happy afterwards, but the shrieking was terrible.<br><br>
I guess I have witnessed beforehand what scientists mean when they say circed boys are less tolerate to pain. To pass out after bumping your leg is pretty extreme imo.

 

[silverspook]

Now that you say that, I've noticed this in our playgroup. Not to the extent of fainting though. All the toddler-age boys in our group, besides my ds of course, are cut. (Two of the babies are intact though! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/thumb.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="thumbs up">) Anyway, when the boys and girls are running around and knock heads or something, the boys cry hysterically for 10 minutes while the girls are much less upset and only need a quick kiss to get back to playing. I never put 2 and 2 together though. It will be interesting to see the difference between the reactions of my intact son and his cut friends when he is a little older...

 

[phdmama06]

I feel so <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/gloomy.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Gloomy">: for that poor little boy.

 

[fiorio]

That is interesting. I have never heard that before. FWIW, my DS is circ'd, and he doesn't have a problem with pain tolerance. When he falls or bumps himself all it takes is a quick kiss and he is fine. He had blood drawn when he was 1 and again at 2 to for allergy testing and he didn't make a peep. The tech was amazed and said she had never seen a baby so calm and content when getting blood drawn.<br><br>
ETA: I am not promoting or condoning circ. It was a choice DH and I made based on "mainstream information". I just think that it sounds like there is something wrong with that poor boy that has nothing to do with circ.

 

[Papai]

I wouldn't put TOO much emphasis on this.<br><br>
My little guy is intact and he's a big crybaby. (Well, duh, he's still a baby.)<br><br>
Pricks, bumps and falls can send him into shrieks.

 

[mum2corbie]

I.have.one.boy.that's.circed.and.one.that's.intact .....Both.are.dramatic.by.nature.but.the.circed.on e.does.react.REALLY.over.the.top.to.pain....<br>
Maybe.it's.just.his.personality...but.maybe.there' s.more.to.it.....<br>
He.was.one.of.the.babes.that.straight.out.passed.o ut.after.his.circ.and.basically.<br>
stayed.passed.out.for.over.12.hours.after...So.may be....<img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/shrug.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="shrug">

 

[kxsiven]

Common sense works with this too.<br><br>
Take an adult man or woman. Tie Him/Her down and slice off their prepuce without pain relief.<br><br>
Wait a year and ask these adults if they react any differently to pain.<br><br>
I bet they both would say yes.<br><br>
It amazes me to know end how so often babies&children are treated like they were a different spieces when they are Real Human Beings - just like we adults are. Why should children be treated under different laws&logic? Just because babies cannot speak does not mean that they&their bodies would not be scarred for life(mentally&physically)by the torture called circumcision.

 

[A&A]

In 1997, the Lancet (British med. publication) documented that circ'd boys have lower thresholds of pain than girls and intact boys.

 

[calngavinsmom]

There was a study done at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children done that documented this.<br><a href="http://www.infocirc.org/babypain.htm" target="_blank">http://www.infocirc.org/babypain.htm</a><br><br>
It makes sense too. If something so painful happens to someone so young, I could see them interpreting any amount of pain as having the potential to become as severe as the circumcision pain. So maybe it is not the actual severity pain they feel that they are reacting to, but the panic that it could get as bad as that of the circ.<br><br>
Take care,<br>
Tara

 

[phatchristy]

Yes, there have been multiple studies done on this so we know that generally this is the case sadly. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/greensad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="greensad"><br><br>
It's been shown even to differ between circumcised boys who received anesthetic and those that did not. It's believed that type of trauma premanently affects the brain.<br><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/greensad.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="greensad"><br><br>
I know the effects have been tracked for years....my DH was most certainly circ'd w/o anesthetic...I wonder if that is why he is SO VERY sensitive to pain. DS here is just like my girls when it comes to pain. Moreover...he's about 2 and I notice little difference between how he acts in comparison to the girls...<br><br>
though others I know claim that their boys are "so different" from their girls as babies and toddlers. It makes me wonder...

 

[lesley&grace]

I have heard that theory before, but I'm not sure how much stock I put into it.<br><br>
My dh is circ'd, and he has the highest pain threshold of anyone I have ever known. He had a cyst surgically removed from his arm without anesthetic and barely flinched.<br><br>
My older ds is intact...and freaks out hysterically with the slightest injury, to the point where I am actually concerned that a serious injury would send him over the edge. Our baby boy, also intact, bumps himself every few minutes (learning to walk) and cries for a moment, accepts a snuggle and gets over it.<br><br>
The main difference between our boys is that ds1 has some pretty serious abandonment issues (his biological mother walked out when he was 2 months old and did inconsistent pops in and out of his life until it became obvious that I was staying...we've not seen her since) and ds2 was born into a family already steady and established, has a stay at home mom...basically his infancy is much more stable than ds1's was.<br><br>
My point is...there is more going on with pain and stress management than whether or not a child was circumcised. I'm not trying to refute the evidence that pain tolerance can be affected by circumcision, I'm just saying it's not the only factor.

 

[QueenOfThePride]

<div style="margin:20px;margin-top:5px;">
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<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="99%"><tr><td class="alt2" style="border:1px inset;">
<div>Originally Posted by <strong>Papai</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/10286177"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">I wouldn't put TOO much emphasis on this.<br><br>
My little guy is intact and he's a big crybaby. (Well, duh, he's still a baby.)<br><br>
Pricks, bumps and falls can send him into shrieks.</div>
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Yes, but <i>this</i> child was circumcised at 8 months old. And that is when the fainting started. It is possible that the circ was done without anesthesia, or very possibly with inadequate anesthesia, and almost certainly no post-op pain relief. Even if the child had a totally effective local block, the fear and trauma of being strapped down followed shortly by severe pain after the block wore off would affect an 8 month old. Or maybe he went under GA, that would be a traumatic experience too. Perhaps the GA was mismanaged, as some people have been awake, but paralyzed through surgery and no one noticed.<br><br>
On a personal note, my first son is as rough-and-tumble as they come. So much so that I sometimes wonder if he has trouble even feeling pain. My second son is just a baby, but if I so much as put him down when he wants to be held, he is all out hysterically sobbing. Both are intact.

 

[tammyswanson]

I've read studies also where parents reaction to a child falling down can also make the kids more aware of pain too. This is just another variable to consider. The parent who freaks out when their baby falls down, compared to the parent who doesn't freak out can affect how they react too.<br><br>
That poor little boy sounds like he was super traumatized by that circ though! I can't imagine that circ doesn't effect them profoundly, it's so painful how could it not, ya know? Poor little guy....

 

[Equuskia]

<div style="margin:20px;margin-top:5px;">
<div class="smallfont" style="margin-bottom:2px;">Quote:</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="99%"><tr><td class="alt2" style="border:1px inset;">
<div>Originally Posted by <strong>calngavinsmom</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/10290090"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">There was a study done at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children done that documented this.<br><a href="http://www.infocirc.org/babypain.htm" target="_blank">http://www.infocirc.org/babypain.htm</a><br><br>
It makes sense too. If something so painful happens to someone so young, I could see them interpreting any amount of pain as having the potential to become as severe as the circumcision pain. So maybe it is not the actual severity pain they feel that they are reacting to, but the panic that it could get as bad as that of the circ.<br><br>
Take care,<br>
Tara</div>
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Yes, he was definitely panicked. I mean, she was standing near me (about 10 feet away from him), opening the needles to draw my blood, and he was totally freaking out, and the tech told him they were for me first, but he was still scared. I honestly have never seen a kid so scared, and I've seen a lot of them when I used to visit the doctors at the city clinic, and they have a lab there where they draw blood as well. The kids are sometimes scared, and may wince or cry, but I've never seen any panic or shriek like this little boy did. It was really mind boggling.<br><br>
For the record, I didn't know that people, aside from Jews and Muslims, circumcised here in PR. Must be another one of the ways that PR takes the customs of the US and does it even "better". For example, the c/s rate in the US is ~32%, here it's ~45%. I'm going to have to find my old ped and ask her about this. Poor boy.

 

[silverspook]

I'm a massage therapst in Tx, so I'm assuming that most of my male clients are circ'd, and, long before I became an intactivist, I noticed that women can handle much deeper pressure for longer periods of time than men can. Now, not all of my male clients were "wimps" <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/lol.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="lol"> but I would say at least 80% of them were!<br><br>
(I'm using past tense discussing male clients because I stopped working on men after unknowingly working on a registered sex offender <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/irked.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="irked"><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/smile.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="smile">

 

[Microsoap]

I hope this isn't thread-hijacking, but I recall that circumcision in Puerto Rico while not popular, is done more than we'd think. Probably an American influence. Is this correct?

 

[Equuskia]

<div style="margin:20px;margin-top:5px;">
<div class="smallfont" style="margin-bottom:2px;">Quote:</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="99%"><tr><td class="alt2" style="border:1px inset;">
<div>Originally Posted by <strong>Microsoap</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/10296909"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">I hope this isn't thread-hijacking, but I recall that circumcision in Puerto Rico while not popular, is done more than we'd think. Probably an American influence. Is this correct?</div>
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Before the 1898 invasion, PR used to be a Spanish colony. As such, I highly doubt that circumcision was widely practiced here, as Catholicism was the main religion here and they usually do not practice circ. Women gave birth at home with parteras (midwives), babies were breastfed and people practiced herbal medicine and whatnot. Now women get csections, babies get WIC formula and people have scripts for 11-22 drugs. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/eyesroll.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="roll">

 

[504IEPMom]

<div style="margin:20px;margin-top:5px;">
<div class="smallfont" style="margin-bottom:2px;">Quote:</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" width="99%"><tr><td class="alt2" style="border:1px inset;">
<div>Originally Posted by <strong>kxsiven</strong> <a href="/community/forum/post/10286382"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a></div>
<div style="font-style:italic;">Common sense works with this too.<br><br>
Take an adult man or woman. Tie Him/Her down and slice off their prepuce without pain relief.<br><br>
Wait a year and ask these adults if they react any differently to pain.<br><br>
I bet they both would say yes.<br><br>
It amazes me to know end how so often babies&children are treated like they were a different spieces when they are Real Human Beings - just like we adults are. Why should children be treated under different laws&logic? Just because babies cannot speak does not mean that they&their bodies would not be scarred for life(mentally&physically)by the torture called circumcision.</div>
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<br>
well said! thats the kind of story I told my obgyn. I hate it when the hospital tells you, 'we can give him some sugar water while cutting?' like THAT'S really going to stop the pain. How about we take you, give you a lollipop and cut the tip off your finger, then let me know if the pop helped!<br>
STOP circ!!!!!!!!!!