When circ's go bad...

I have NEVER seen a circ like this. Simply awful. I am glad to say, our peds do them right, and well. And I agree with the poster who said it is not necessary. It's NOT, and there ARE risks. People have the right and obligation to know this before subjecting their children to circumcision.

(yes my son is circ'd, but it was 12 years ago, before I gave much thought beyond aesthetics, I would NOT choose to do it now, if I had it to do over again). Jmo.

When my oldest son was born 22 years ago, there was a huge controversy going on regarding circumcision. I researched it during my pregnancy and decided against it but my husband wanted it done. We argued until the 3rd day post-partum (yep 22 years ago a normal vag delivery stayed 3 days)
Finally I had to sign the consent (me, not the dad) because my husband was adamant that his son wouldn't be a "freak". He said he would get teased unmercifully. With our second son I made him watch - he thought it was "cool". Needless to say my 3 1/2 year old is also circ'd.

If it was up to me I wouldn't do it. But the men want it done. And I've talked to a grown man who had to be circ'd in his 20's and he said there was no difference in sensitivity.

Everyone is different I guess.

steph

I'm so glad that so many of you feel that routine circ is unnessacary. When my first son was born, my husband (himself not circ) was totally against it, so I left the decision up to him and we didn't circ. That was 11 years ago and I did get a lot of comments from people when changing his diaper. Five years ago when I didn't circ my second son, not only did I not hear the comments, but I met a lot of parents opting not to circ.

The objections I heard the most about keeping him intact were "he's going to be teased" and "he's going to need it done later."

My husband comes from a large family of brothers & male cousins, most of his brothers also had boys... about 2 dozen boys total. All are uncirc-ed, none have ever been teased (even growing up in the 70's and 80's) and none has ever had a problem. I think the problems start when well meaning parents yank down the foreskin to clean the inside. IMO The medical community is not clear on the cleaning procedure, I got lots of different advice from different staff members in the same hospital.

In my experience it is usually the men making these decisions because they want their son to look like them. It's only natural for them to think that what they have is "normal" and what the other guys have is abnormal. I do think circs are more common in the US than Canada and more common in certain geographical areas, but that's just my experience.

Once in a FL hospital the doctor accidently amputated the penis! yup, it is true, talk about a major lawsuit.

I saw a bad infection once, but that was treatable. I do help out with circs and I'm pretty understanding and nonjudgemental of parents who choose to circ their baby. It seems like for every circ horror story that there is, there's one about a 20 year old that had to be circ'd and go through hellish pain...Anecdotal evidence, while interesting, cannot be trusted for making surgical decisions about your children's body parts.

I personally would never choose circumcision for my kid, but then I don't have any kids so I'm not a loudmouth about how to raise them.

From everything I've read, adults don't need to be circ'd later in life unless there's a major problem, and often even those circs are unnessacary.

What's interesting to me is why so many people claim it's much more painful for an adult. Is it because an adult can tell us about the pain? I mean, think about it. A newborn's forskin is very tight, whereas an adult's is retractable. The later sounds less painful to me!

'Course I'm not a man so I can't say! LOL

I have always wondered about that. Fortunately I think most doctors do use some pain medication nowadays.

As a student, the docs I saw do it used nothing other than a little sugar water on a pacifier. The part that also seemed painful to me was diaper changes.

It's a rare man these days, who is at all educated, that seeks a circumcision. Education is key. The word must get out; this is a cosmetic thing, NO MORE. (unless you have religious meaning attached to this procedure).

If I am lucky enough to have another boy, I would push NOT to circumcise. I just think it's a horrendous thing to put a kid through just to please MY eyes (or those of my husband). Fortunately, my dh is a very understanding and reasonable man. I think he would see the light if I educated him as to why this is not a prudent practice, if only for the sake of looks. Religious rituals are a different story. But we are practicing NONE of those, so there was no real reason to circ my son, than ignorance on my part.

Sounds horrible..........

renerian