The nurse in me comes up with the darnedest questions and thoughts some times.
I was watching Rocky yesterday and this question kept me awake.
Many many years ago I asked someone about the role of the "cut man" in boxing. Generally my understanding from that is he was someone who had specialized skill in closing cuts a boxer sustained in the fight. He closed the cut bringing the edges together and stopping the bleeding so that it healed with minimum scarring.
All the images I say in TV movies (I watched black and white until the mid 80s) supported this explanation.
Well it finally hit me yesterday. Ok so I am slow on the uptake. Rocky's eye was swollen shut from the beating he took. He said "I can't see. I need to be able to see. Cut me."
Clearly Cutting was exactly what took place. Yea, it looked more like the actor squirted fake blood on his face (and of course that it what they did). Blood flowed to show he was actually being cut.
I thought about this. This is the conclusion I came to. The cut man cuts where there is bleeding that impairs function in order to release the pressure the bleeding causes so function will be restored. Yes I am guessing that he also uses styptic to stop the bleeding where he can as well. Anyway Rocky was able to open his eye in the next round.
Is there someone who has more insight than this into the cut man and what exactly he does and why.
Art Linkletter once had a TV show with a segment called Kids say the darnedest things. We could just call this nurses contemplate the darnedest things.
When babies get circumcised, we give them a lot of sucrose (Sweetease), which (evidence-based!) helps them deal w/it. If the operator uses a penile block, so much the better, but they all like that sweet stuff!
Well, with that logic we could sexually assault them, too, because they won't remember it when they are older anyhow.
Equating circumcision with sexual predation on an infant is shock-tactics, not debate. You know they aren't the same thing and do not in any way compare.
I remember some studies coming out a while back that infants who had been circumcised (as well as infants who had other painful procedures during their neonatal time period) had stronger reactions to pain later on in life.
All of which as you probably already know have been discounted before, simply because it is difficult to equate pain from one patient to another when both patients aren't able to accurately articulate that pain other than by crying. Who is suffering more? How do you tell? Is it normal for this child to cry at this volume? Would they cry more or less if they were or weren't circumcised? How can you tell? In an adult or child able to speak, you ask them to rate their pain (usually on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10). In an infant, you can only guess by reaction.
As well, the concerns about circumcision aren't just "will it hurt them;" but rather, is putting them at risk for hemorrhage, infection, and eating problems (and therefore jaundice) at 2 days post birth appropriate?
Given the health problems and general risks associated with not being circumcised, I'm rather glad my parents made the choice they did. As you know, not being circumcised has been shown to lead to increased chances for various diseases including herpes, urinary tract infections, penile cancer, etc - there was even a study once in the 50's that showed circumcision reduced the chance of prostate cancer (!), though it has recently been questioned for methodology.
What interests me most about the issue of circumcision is that the people who argue the most to stop it never bother to ask the billions of men who were circumcised neo-natally what they think about it. Instead, they would prefer to believe the child in tremendous agony and having trouble years later, and come up with all sorts of studies that show we as circumcised men will be emotionally, physically and spiritually scarred by a childhood experience we do not remember at all.
And yet, here we are. I'm not having problems, nor was I particularly fussy with injections later. And my story is not unique, it is common to literally billions of men the world over. It's the horror stories you read about that are unique and rare.
Whether or not you have your child circumcised is a personal decision, naturally. And yes, the child will feel pain. And yes, there is a risk of complications, as with any minor surgury. There is even a miniscule risk of death - again, as with any outpatient surgury. And these are important things to consider when deciding whether or not this is a procedure you wish to have done.
But pain? No, sorry, that's just not a consideration. It's not anything that they're going to remember. And it doesn't affect them later in life, other than reducing their chances for contracting various conditions which ordinarily require a foreskin to develop.
AAAAAnnnnd back on topic...
Sorry, my apologies. I just find the whole anti-circ movement annoying, because the way they approach the problem is to tell me something is basically wrong with my member. You're completely correct - back to the topic of docking puppy tails.
You're completely correct - back to the topic of docking puppy tails.
prmenrs, RN
4,565 Posts
When babies get circumcised, we give them a lot of sucrose (Sweetease), which (evidence-based!) helps them deal w/it. If the operator uses a penile block, so much the better, but they all like that sweet stuff!