Posted in 
Previous: 
: 
Unsolicited Advice
Sign In >>
Dr Shapiro completed his undergraduate education at UC San Diego earning a B S in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and a B A in Political Science He furthered his education at UCLA where he earned a Masters Degree in Public…
FAST FACTS
Circumcision: Is the Pendulum Swinging Back Again?
During my meetings with parents-to-be, by far, the most common question I am asked involves vaccines. But for those who are about to have a son, I am also commonly asked for my perspective regarding neonatal circumcision. And my response to this point has been pretty standard: if religious/cultural obligations do not exist, I share with parents the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) - Circumcision Policy Statement (now about 10 years old but reaffirmed just 4 years ago) which basically states there is not enough scientific evidence to support routine neonatal circumcision. I do believe the basic premise of "like father, like son" and will often turn to the father-to-be and make sure he understands some questions may arise later in life when his son discovers he is different from his father. And I may also reference a research article (usually performed in Africa) which demonstrates some reduced risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), but beyond that, I've avoided pointing parents in one direction or another.
But I'm wondering if this is about to change as it appears those interesting research articles (again, usually performed in Africa) are growing in number. Just recently, a report published in the International AIDS Society journal found that circumcising 500,000 males in Botswana by 2012 may prevent up to 70,000 new HIV infections by 2025 as previous studies found uncircumcised men were 2-3 times more likely to acquire HIV when compared to circumcised men. Furthermore, because the rates of penile cancer vary throughout the world, it does prompt one to consider what risk factors may be in place to explain these differences. And while I admit the research studies examining the role of circumcision on penile cancer are not the greatest, there is enough theoretical evidence to support that appropriate care of an uncircumcised male (ensuring the foreskin is fully retractable by the time the child is 5 or 6 years of age and cleansed routinely) is important in preventing transmission of certain STIs, particularly ones linked to penile cancer in males and cervical cancer in females (please see my next immunization discussion regarding human papillomavirus (HPV) for further details).
So while I cannot speak upon behalf of the AAP regarding any official policy change, I certainly believe it is essential that parents of males have all the information and at this point, if a circumcision is not to be done, appropriate hygiene and care must be undertaken beginning at a young age.
Dr. Jeremy
CATEGORIES:
News
CONDITIONS AND COMMUNITIES:
Adoption
•
Breastfeeding
•
Circumcision
•
Gay Parenting
•
Grandparents Raising Children
•
Military Families
•
Parenting 'Tweens (9-12)
•
Parenting Big Kids (5-8)
•
Parenting Newborns & Infants (0-1)
•
Parenting Preschoolers (3-5)
•
Parenting Teenagers (12-18)
•
Parenting Toddlers (1-3)
•
Pregnancy
•
Pregnancy - Teens
•
Pregnancy After Loss/Infertility
•
Premature Birth
•
Single Dads
•
Single Parenting
•
Trying To Conceive
•
Twins, Triplets & More
Displaying comments 66-47 of 66
Got a Question?
This doesn't make any sense
"Period, my husband and I have decided. And I do have a friend who had circumcision later and life and wish it had been done when he was an infant because all the pain, all the medication in the world wouldnt stop the pain he felt."
The fact a baby isn't circumcised at birth doesn't mean he will need, at some point, to be circumcised later in life. So your argument it's more painful as an adult doesn't make any sense since it supposes a man will need to get circumcised if he wasn't at birth. So you recognize circumcision is painful for an adult but harmless for a baby ??
Babies are much more sensitive for obvious reasons, babies can die from painful experiences, not adults (at least more rarely).
"So do with your penis as you please but dont say I dont have the right to choose for my son."
The law allows you to circumcise, that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. If the law enables you to remove a toe, finger, hand etc... from your son, would you think it's your right because you can do it legally? Once again, a very poor argument.
"He wouldnt exist without me."
So it gives you the right to mutilate an innocent child since he is alive because of you? Your role shouldn't be to protect him as a mother?
"You like your penis looking like an elephant trunk so be it,"
This is your personal preference that can be explained by the fact you are used to see circumcised penis. Your son may think different later, especially nowadays where circumcision rate is 50% and still decreasing.
"but I prefer to have my son clean."
This has nothing to do with circumcision but hygiene. A penis is clean (whether or not circumcised) only if a man keeps himself clean. Doing surgery just for potential hygiene is an extreme measure and insane. 80% of men are intact and don't have any problems with that.
This is a myth shared only by some ignorant people. The fact you think it's cleaner doesn't mean it is. There are (wrong) opinions and reality. It looks like you are very far away from reality.
"And I do look at uncircumcision as dirty WOMEN CAN GET INFECTIONS more often with uncircumcision than with."
Men are also less likely to get infections from circumcised women (in Africa). This is no excuse. Would you consider circumcisiong your child if it was a girl?
By the way there are 0 proof that women are more likely to get infections from intact men. There are just a couple of studies that claim circumcsion might reduce infections for women. There are also other studies that say the contrary. A very illogical argument from you.
"And anyone can jump down my throat nothing you say will change my mind"
The fact that you won't change your mind is one thing. The fact you use irrational arguments to justify needless mutilation is another thing.
In the past people doing circumcision hadn't all this information about circumcision, so they had at least an excuse to practice circumcision because of ignorance. However you have now no excuse considering all information available to public.
"or hurt my feelings because I watch some of you attack others because of personal belief. Thats YOUR choice, this is mine and others."
Circumcision shouldn't be a choice given to parents. It's like saying I have the choice to remove a finger/toe or not from my son. I have the right to mutilate or not my son...This is false logic.
Dr. Jeremy"
This is disingenuous at best--"gentle tugging" IS forced retraction--unnecessary and harmful.
I find it interesting to see the twisted logic, word games, and disregard for empirical evidence circumcisers use.
Try this unsupported nonsense on those infants who die every year from circumcision, and then tell me again WHY it should be YOUR right to inflict this senseless and unnecessary procedure on an unconsenting infant.
Only 25% of the world is circumcised - 2/3 of these men are Muslim.
Virtually the whole of Europe is not circumcised.
I think it is ethically wrong to remove a highly sensitive functioning part of the penis without the child's consent.
The foreskin has a function:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com...
Removing it causes harm, and loss in sensitivity and functionality:
http://www.noharmm.org/IDcirc.htm
http://xrl.us/foreskinfunctions
You aren't Jewish by any chance are you? Why can't more Jews be like Dean Edell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuu...
The African trials cannot be applied to developed countries, so you mentioning them to prospective parents is actually unethical and irresponsible.
http://www.cirp.org/library/diseas...
http://www.nature.com/nrurol/journ...
http://pediatrics.aappublications....#23937
http://cirp.org/library/disease/HI...
There is not a HIV epidemic in developed countries which is why the UK isn't going to re-assess its negative stance and there is no evidence circumcision protects men who have sex with men. Also you cannot predict a person's future sexual behavior . For all you know he could be a virgin when gets married. Also, you should be wearing condoms anyway. Circumcision may discourage condom use because men might not want to be de-sensitized further. This could explain why circumcision has had no effect on STI's in the USA:
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/p...
Very interesting one.
It'a shame that most powerful medias associated with some medical organizations that make big profits with routine circumcision prevent people from the truth.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence...
http://www.fgmnetwork.org/index.php
http://www.bodhimandala.net/index....
I offer these sites in anticipation of the next argument which I imagine will be - female and male circumcision are not the same thing
http://www.compleatmother.com/arti...
http://www.noharmm.org/comparison.htm
Outside of the religious context, the primary difference between male and female circumcision is that the male version is practiced in the U.S. by doctors in hospitals on babies and so is deemed modern, scientific, hygienic, and a parent's choice. We in the U.S. deem it an archaic and barbaric human rights violation when parents choose the same thing for their older daughters in Africa - and rightly so - because it is barbaric. Yet the two practices are rooted in similar beliefs about sexuality and desires to control it - albeit the reasons for the male version in the west have been transformed over time to make it more palitable as well as to make up for the fact that the practice is useless in controling sexuality.
And in terms of violence against the child, as far as I can tell the only difference between strapping a newborn boy to a board or swaddling him so tightly he can't move to facilitate the removal of part of his genitalia and grown women holding down a ten year old girl to do the same thing is that the girl knows what's coming and can fight back, however futilely. I was not aware there are standards of age appropriateness when it comes to violence against children. Furthermore, many parents choose to do many, many horrible things to their children that society as a whole deems unacceptable. Parental choice is not a justification for doing whatever you want to your child. It just so happens that the practice of routine male infant circumcision is sanctioned by modern medicine in the U.S. and that is what makes it "acceptable" here - not that it is a parent's right.
CaleeBugsMom, are you referring to the judgement of your natural neighbor as your American right?
Again you are uninformed, as you may look at the link as it is correctly spelled, hygiene, can be overly practiced and will cause pain and suffering, which is the opposite effect of hygiene's purpose, which is to end disease and suffering.
Oh and we are still waiting for the "information" you promised in the immunization comments... Or did your judgement really have no basis like this one?
Personally I think that Infant circumcision should be stoped. It is cruel and painfull for a baby to under-go something like that. I think that the child should be at least 13 or older to have it done, but only if the child wants it. Infant circumcision is taking away the rights of the child as a human. The child has no say so in it. Which they say circumcision is mostly for hygene purposes and that is hard to clean and care for, thats not so true. Im uncut and ive never had a problem with hygene and cleaning, its all just a myth. Im not saying to do away with circumcision, but I do know that its wrong to be done on infants and they not have a say so in it, it should be their choose and have a say so in it.
Buy Resveratrol
Another issues with the topic of AIDS in Botswana, is the culture that uses sex as a comodity, and the truckers go all over the continent of Africa, and pay desperately poor women for sex, and they refuse to acknowledge the virus, and refuse to practice safe sex. It is cultural, not mechanical, caused by foreskin.
Just a thought... that is why I doubt authority.
Yes it can REDUCE the pain, but this ignores the question that is ANY unnecessary pain justifiable?
"Sexually speaking, a circumcised penis is more pleasurable and physically appealing to most women and that is a confidence booster to most men and that is the best reason for having the procedure done."
Actually the O'Hara study showed that a normal penis is MORE pleasurable:
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatom...
And the altered penis is only attractive to the 20% of people who circumcise--ie, Jews, Muslims, and Americans..
With the rate in the USA now approaching 50% and declining , I doubt there will be teasing--unless after it goes below 50% the cut boys will be teased.
Just curious if any women pregnant with boys are not planning on circumcision.
http://resveratrol-ultra.wetpaint.com
Dr. Jeremy
This is horrid advice. The foreskin will be retractable when it IS, and that's the right time. The only person who should ever try to retract a foreskin is its owner. If he's never be discouraged from manipulating it in private, it will get all the help it needs to retract comfortably.
There is no need to clean the intact penis in a special way. Don't go rooting around in there any more than you would in a girl's vagina. Sterile urine leaving the body flushes the foreskin interior to a hygienic state for every mammal on earth, and it's been working pretty well for about 65 million years. The AAP says "clean only what is seen" and also "leave it alone."
Of course kids don't match adults in terms of facial and body hair, anatomical proportions, war injuries, etc. It's just dopey and incredible self-centered to think they should match.
If they must match let the father use non-surgical foreskin restoration techniques. Why inflict another mutilation on the child when the adult can be made more whole?
How could a parent's best guess now ever be a better be a better answer to what the owner of the penis would prefer for his sex life than that owner's own reasoned opinion? If you cut your child you are saying that you not only don't trust him to practice safe sex, you don't trust him to be able to make decisions about himself. He will be a rational adult one day, as you are now, except by then he will have more and better information about whatever AIDS counter-measures are available THEN.
In the meantime it's HIS body and only HE has the moral right to decide to have healthy normal body parts amputated.
Most of the US men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth.
Foreskin feels REALLY good.
Thanks for quoting me but I wanted to tell you that the link you posted goes to a site about anti-aging cream. :? Maybe you accidentally posted the wrong link or something.
Anyway, yes only the boy himself manipulates his foreskin. Trying to encourage retraction would be like trying to retract a girl's clitoral hood and trying to widen her vaginal opening. Not only is it unnecessary and potentially harmful but it is molestation! The genitals develop fine on their very own. This is how they develop naturally in mammals and humans for as long as we have walked the earth. Foreskins of boys and girls do NOT need any help or encouragement to reach maturity. The tight foreskin deserves just as much respect as a tight hymen of a girl. This kind of misinformation is what causes problems for so many of our intact boys here in America. Parents get overly concerned about their son's intact penis simply b/c many doctors don't respect the normal developmental process. That process isn't complete on most boys until after puberty.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Best-Ant...
Really it's not that hard folks. Just treat your sons like you treat your daughters. Only clean what is seen.