I just got back from a two day ordeal at the hospital with my three month old intact son who has a UTI. The doctor said that it is only slightly more common for intact boys to get UTIs, almost not enough of a statistical difference to pay attention to, but my mother sent me this article that basically says there are two things you can do to prevent UTIs in baby boys, either circumsise, or be sure they get enough "good bacteria" in their systems. Does anyone know of a good resource that explains exactly how much more likely it is for an intact baby boy to get a UTI? This article is a little dated - 1989. http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/...berg-bollgren/
UTIs and circumcision
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Here are some numbers. Circumcision is not appropriate.
2 out of every 1000 circumcised boys will be admitted to the hospital for a UTI before they are one year old.
7 out of every 1000 intact boys will be admitted to the hospital for a UTI before they are one year old.
Out of every 1000 circumcised boys:
20 to 30 will have immediate surgical complications or subsequent infection in the healing process
10 will need to be recircumcised due to poor result.
Out of every 1000 intact boys:
10 will be circumcised later in life, most unnecessarily.
Out of every million circumcised men, one will develop penile cancer later in life.
Out of every million intact men, three will develop penile cancer later in life.
If you weigh in on all the numbers... circumcision just don't compute!
(from http://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/babi...sion.htm#Risks )
2 out of every 1000 circumcised boys will be admitted to the hospital for a UTI before they are one year old.
7 out of every 1000 intact boys will be admitted to the hospital for a UTI before they are one year old.
Out of every 1000 circumcised boys:
20 to 30 will have immediate surgical complications or subsequent infection in the healing process
10 will need to be recircumcised due to poor result.
Out of every 1000 intact boys:
10 will be circumcised later in life, most unnecessarily.
Out of every million circumcised men, one will develop penile cancer later in life.
Out of every million intact men, three will develop penile cancer later in life.
If you weigh in on all the numbers... circumcision just don't compute!
(from http://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/babi...sion.htm#Risks )
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Oh and I'm sorry your fella is ill!
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Chai:
If you will read that article very carefully, you will see that it is very clear that circumcision should not be considered. I suspect that your mother didn't read it very clearly and thought it was saying that circumcision is a preventative for UTIs. What it was saying is that to prevent UTIs, the mother should spend as much skin to skin contact time with the baby in the first few days as possible to "contaminate" the baby with her good, beneficial bacteria and to breast feed to also transfer her natural immunities. What the author is speculating about is that an artificial "inoculation" could be developed to replace this natural bonding time since most newborns are now placed in nurseries and don't get that normal and natural colonization of bacteria. Not what you thought, was it?
Now, to go a bit further. This article was written to refute a study done by Dr. Thomas Wiswell. Dr. Wiswell is a tireless self promoter and advocate of circumcision. He is so eager to have boys circumcised that he is willing to fabricate evidence to deceive parents into circumcising their sons and this study is evidence of that zeal.
It is a well known fact that premature babies both male and female, are at a much higher risk of UTIs than full term babies. Dr. Wiswell choose all premature babies for his intact study group and all full term babies for his circumcised group. See what I'm getting at here? Wiswell actually constructed his study to come up with his desired results. Yet, even at that, he only found that the rate was 2.5% higher. Not much difference, huh?
There have been 8 or 10 studies that have all found the difference in the UTI rate between circumcised and intact boys at less than 1%, or statistically insignificant and well within the range of confounding factors. You can find all of the available UTI studies at www.cirp.org. Just search for "UTI" or "urinary tract infections." Read them very carefully and you will see that the argument for circumcision based on UTIs is beyond weak.
By the way, Wiswell's deceptive study came back to bite him in the butt. He was once a member of the AAP's Taskforce on Circumcision, a very prestigious position and an excellent place to argue for universal mandatory circumcision. However, he was found out for his trickery and falsifying of research and as a result, was removed from the taskforce in 1992. He's still stinging from that one!
Frank
If you will read that article very carefully, you will see that it is very clear that circumcision should not be considered. I suspect that your mother didn't read it very clearly and thought it was saying that circumcision is a preventative for UTIs. What it was saying is that to prevent UTIs, the mother should spend as much skin to skin contact time with the baby in the first few days as possible to "contaminate" the baby with her good, beneficial bacteria and to breast feed to also transfer her natural immunities. What the author is speculating about is that an artificial "inoculation" could be developed to replace this natural bonding time since most newborns are now placed in nurseries and don't get that normal and natural colonization of bacteria. Not what you thought, was it?
Now, to go a bit further. This article was written to refute a study done by Dr. Thomas Wiswell. Dr. Wiswell is a tireless self promoter and advocate of circumcision. He is so eager to have boys circumcised that he is willing to fabricate evidence to deceive parents into circumcising their sons and this study is evidence of that zeal.
It is a well known fact that premature babies both male and female, are at a much higher risk of UTIs than full term babies. Dr. Wiswell choose all premature babies for his intact study group and all full term babies for his circumcised group. See what I'm getting at here? Wiswell actually constructed his study to come up with his desired results. Yet, even at that, he only found that the rate was 2.5% higher. Not much difference, huh?
There have been 8 or 10 studies that have all found the difference in the UTI rate between circumcised and intact boys at less than 1%, or statistically insignificant and well within the range of confounding factors. You can find all of the available UTI studies at www.cirp.org. Just search for "UTI" or "urinary tract infections." Read them very carefully and you will see that the argument for circumcision based on UTIs is beyond weak.
By the way, Wiswell's deceptive study came back to bite him in the butt. He was once a member of the AAP's Taskforce on Circumcision, a very prestigious position and an excellent place to argue for universal mandatory circumcision. However, he was found out for his trickery and falsifying of research and as a result, was removed from the taskforce in 1992. He's still stinging from that one!
Frank
Hi! I haven't read the other replies yet, but I wanted to say that I know what you are going through. My intact son had a UTI at 5 weeks and was hospitalized. He was tested for Kidney Reflux (which runs in our family) but he doesn't have it. He had 1 follow up UTI several weeks later, and hasn't had another one again (he is 9 mos old now).
I did some reading about UTIs and newborns and what I read said it is actually more common for newborn boys to get UTIs than girls and that often these babies acquire the bacteria from the mother at birth. The reason why it is more common in boys is because they are generally the "weaker sex" so to speak and are just more vulnerable to having problems anyway.
We saw a urologist when DS was about 4-5 mos old and he said that when he sees infants under 6 mos of age in the ER with UTIs that they are almost always intact. After 6 mos of age he has seen no difference in the rate of UTIs between circumcised and intact boys. He did not recommend having our son circumcised, and we never had another recurrence of UTIs.
If reflux has been ruled out, it is possible this is the only UTI your son may ever get.
HUGS, and feel free to email me if you want to talk [email protected]
I did some reading about UTIs and newborns and what I read said it is actually more common for newborn boys to get UTIs than girls and that often these babies acquire the bacteria from the mother at birth. The reason why it is more common in boys is because they are generally the "weaker sex" so to speak and are just more vulnerable to having problems anyway.
We saw a urologist when DS was about 4-5 mos old and he said that when he sees infants under 6 mos of age in the ER with UTIs that they are almost always intact. After 6 mos of age he has seen no difference in the rate of UTIs between circumcised and intact boys. He did not recommend having our son circumcised, and we never had another recurrence of UTIs.
If reflux has been ruled out, it is possible this is the only UTI your son may ever get.
HUGS, and feel free to email me if you want to talk [email protected]
They did all the tests while we were in the hospital for the UTI, and he is normal... no reflux, etc. He WAS in the NICU the first week of his life... maybe the reason he didn't get enough "good bacteria..." I was never considering circumcision - but my mother thinks we shoud have done it. I sent her the links posted here, hopefully that will shut her up for a while
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I'm betting that most "UTI's" are really yeast overgrowths, and that treating them with anti-biotics pretty much defeats the purpose.
I'm also betting that when a ped or even a urologist sees a red, itchy or inflamed foreskin, they automatically think "UTI", because conventional medicine doesn't recognize yeast overgrowth as being a problem - which is kind of dumb, since if a woman presented with a red, itchy, or inflamed vagina, they would not have any problem diagnosing it as a vaginal yeast infection, and prescribe an antifungal.
Probiotics are huge in the medical literature these days, but most pediatricians still don't know much about them, and so are more wary than they need to be in recommending them. I think this is because they've only been big in the medical literature in the last 4 years or so, and most of the peds have been out of medical school longer than that.
They do make probiotics just for the youngest infants, and I've known people who've given them to their babies shortly after birth (mostly because the baby received antibiotics during the birth process).
I'm also betting that when a ped or even a urologist sees a red, itchy or inflamed foreskin, they automatically think "UTI", because conventional medicine doesn't recognize yeast overgrowth as being a problem - which is kind of dumb, since if a woman presented with a red, itchy, or inflamed vagina, they would not have any problem diagnosing it as a vaginal yeast infection, and prescribe an antifungal.
Probiotics are huge in the medical literature these days, but most pediatricians still don't know much about them, and so are more wary than they need to be in recommending them. I think this is because they've only been big in the medical literature in the last 4 years or so, and most of the peds have been out of medical school longer than that.
They do make probiotics just for the youngest infants, and I've known people who've given them to their babies shortly after birth (mostly because the baby received antibiotics during the birth process).
They said there was lot of bacteria in my son's urine an his foreskin was not red or inflamed - only symptom was fever and brown urine. So I'm pretty sure it wasn't yeast. Anyway, he's getting pro-biotics to counteract the antibiotics. And the bottle said they were designed to be given from birth if that means anything.
http://www.jarrow.com/products/BabYsJarroDophilus.htm
http://www.jarrow.com/products/BabYsJarroDophilus.htm
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If babies aren't colonized with probiotics from the environment within hours after birth, they can die - we all need beneficial bacteria in our guts to digest food. One of the reasons homebirths are better than hospital births IMO is that baby gets colonized with bacteria from mom rather than what's floating around the hospital - research has shown that babies born in hospitals are more likely to be colonized with E. coli rather than beneficial bacteria.
I think probiotics are safe to give from day one - there is simply no harm in them.
I think probiotics are safe to give from day one - there is simply no harm in them.
My son's only symtom was high fever and when he was hospitalized it was indeed E coli. He was a homebirth and no one else in our house has/had been ill. I am mystifed as to where he got it. We had had two well baby visits and had the newborn screen done so he has been inside a germy doctor's office. He has not had any vacinations at this point. Also kidney ultrasound and CVUG tests were normal.
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