When circ's go bad...

I've never seen anything like that. I have seen more than one that was less than perfect, more than one infected and one where the baby almost bled to death and required transfusion (thanks to a surprise clotting disorder never seen in the family before). I won't participate in circumcisions.

When I worked in peds as an MA, saw a couple where they wouldn't stop bleeding for awhile and infections. Never anything like that. I don't believe in routine circumcision, so I am soo glad I work nights and we rarely ever have to assist with one. I really hate watching them.

I was present for one where the mother insisted on watching and comforting her infant, but she passed out in the middle of it, hit the circumstraint and she and the baby hit the floor. Luckily no one was hurt.

I also don't believe that routine infant circumcision is necessary, and don't participate in them. Since I work nights it's pretty rare that I would be asked to do so- but we have one awesome ped who comes in at 5:40 am, and I usually see him once a week or so on one of my shifts. My coworkers are aware that in addition to having ethical issues about participating in circs, observing the procedure is about the only thing guaranteed to make me pass out , so someone else is always willing to assist if our LNA or nursery nurse is unavailable.

Sorry for the tangent- to the op- I've only been in LDRP since May '04, and I'd estimate 90% of the baby boys born with us are circ'd before discharge, There's one ped who doesn't believe they are necessary and does kind of a half-circ, leaving some of the foreskin. So besides those (which I'm sure those baby boys will be glad to have those extra nerve endings in the leftove tissue when they grow up!), I've only seen a couple mild bleeders and one in which far too much skin was removed.

I have also seen what happens to those babies who had far too much tissue removed and required fancy putting of things together when they become an adult, and he has a scar along the underside of the shaft that he & his mother don't remember him getting, bits of hair growning on either side of the scar, and decreased sensation on one side of that scar.

He has never been able to reach organism through intercourse.

When I was in my OB rotation we were able to view and assist with circs. The scariest thing I saw was this one doc who was quite old, losing his fine motor skill precision and not to mention his eyesight. The nurses on the floor warned me about this before he began the procedure but I didn't think it could be as bad as they said. Well...it was as bad as they said, maybe even worse. He was shaking through the entire procedure and even dropped a few instruments on the floor. :chair: I would say that this one circ took around 45 minutes maybe closer to an hour. He knew he was bad too, but he refused to ask another doc to do his work. After the procedure everything looked fine but nevertheless I think if he kept this up he was going to have a major oops! I definately would not want him doing a circ on my son!!

I've seen a few that bled alot and a couple that required a stitch or two. Some have been crooked but none to the extent that you described. I saw my first uncircumsized male in my peds rotation in school. He was a 4 yo that assessing and I asked my instructor "What is THAT?". I personally was grossed out (not very good hygenic practices in his family), I vowed I would have my son circ'ed.

Don't have a son, but I believe 98% of the NB males I have seen have been circ'ed.

I have never seen a circ bleed like you all have described...thank God!! I have, however, been lucky enough to have seen a circ gone bad. We too had an elderly OB who didn't know when to quit. He had advanced parkinsons and shook like a leaf. Needless to say..the circ looked like it had been chewed off and urology had to come to the rescue. He didn't do anymore circs after that.

I don't see many circs working nights...and I am happy about that.

awwwww.

old people are so cute.

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.

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.