did you circumcise your son?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes - not jewish and both our boys are circumcised. For those who missed it, the Washington Post had an article today about circumcision. The short of it is that there are quite a few health benefits to circumcision based on some large studies recently completed. "In addition to reducing the risk for urinary tract infections among infants, studies indicate that circumcision cuts the chances of adult men's getting penile cancer and becoming infected with a variety of sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, AIDS, herpes and the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes genital warts in men and women and cervical cancer in women."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011503106.html

Obviously a personal decision to be made by mom and dad, but those who think it is done for purely cosmetic reasons are just wrong.

I am honestly not trying to debate, but since someone else posted this I feel I need to respond. It just isn't as simple as this article tries to make it seem. The United States has many pro-circ doctors and researchers, and thus sees circ as beneficial in situations where no one else does. Since there is an underlying assumption in this country that the male prepuce is a "troublemaker" it skews how they evaluate data. It's called cultural bias and it plays very heavily into how circumcision is presented in this country. I think it's very interesting that Canadian doctors (who no longer perform routine neonatal circumcision) saw the same information and drew drastically different conclusions:
www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/circumcision-health-benefit-virtually-nil-study-finds/article1427972/

It does seem awfully strange to me that people in this country can so easily be convinced that cutting off a normal, healthy body part from a newborn baby, is an effective and reasonable method for trying to prevent possible infections. What do you do if your daughter develops a UTI? What do you do to reduce her risk of STDs and HIV? Would you consider starting to snip off parts of her genitals in the hopes it might reduce these things? In fact, there is some data from other countries which supports the (ridiculous) notion that removing part of the female labia and foreskin could reduce HIV and other types of infection. Why isn't that getting any airtime in our press I wonder?

And no, none of my four (yes, four) boys are circumcised. I doubt they will ever remember seeing my DHs circumcised penis, but if they happen to and notice something (other than the hair, lol) then we will explain that we know better now. I highly doubt our parents/grandparents generation (who were almost all intact) were worried about their little boys (our DH's) "not matching Daddy."

[Anonymous]

Whoops, try again:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/circumcision-health-benefit-virtually-nil-study-finds/article1427972/

[Anonymous]

Okay, 17:33, I didn't mind your post until I got to the part about "we know better now."

I disagree wholeheartedly. I don't think you know better. I believe that you THINK you know better, but that's not quite the same thing, is it?

[Anonymous]

OB/baby nurse here we have over 70% of the boys getting a circ before leaving hospital and my son us getting one too. the kiddo gets enough meds down there and some don't even cry!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, 17:33, I didn't mind your post until I got to the part about "we know better now."

I disagree wholeheartedly. I don't think you know better. I believe that you THINK you know better, but that's not quite the same thing, is it?

In our family, we definitely know better. Can't speak for anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OB/baby nurse here we have over 70% of the boys getting a circ before leaving hospital and my son us getting one too. the kiddo gets enough meds down there and some don't even cry!

What hospital do you work at?

[Anonymous]

Husband is, two boys are not.

We had no religious or cultural reason to do it and decided against a medical procedure when the evidence seemed inconclusive for boys living in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OB/baby nurse here we have over 70% of the boys getting a circ before leaving hospital and my son us getting one too. the kiddo gets enough meds down there and some don't even cry!

The ones that don't even cry, are they awake or just super numb? Once the meds wear off, no noticeable pain or anything?

[Anonymous]

Yes, and my OB let me watch. (I'm not sqeamish to these kind of things)

[Anonymous]

pp here...my son cried. It is painful to them.

[Anonymous]

i read in several places that babies often don't cry during circumcision because they actually go into shock, because of the pain. i am not sure if this is true, but it made sense to me that if someone cut off part of my body, i'd go into shock. i am curious if anyone has seen research supporting this.

it does seem very hypocritical to me that we so willingly do this to boys and call it circumcision, but wouldn't think of doing it to girls (and we judge harshly those in other cultures who do it to girls and call it mutilation).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i read in several places that babies often don't cry during circumcision because they actually go into shock, because of the pain. i am not sure if this is true, but it made sense to me that if someone cut off part of my body, i'd go into shock. i am curious if anyone has seen research supporting this.

it does seem very hypocritical to me that we so willingly do this to boys and call it circumcision, but wouldn't think of doing it to girls (and we judge harshly those in other cultures who do it to girls and call it mutilation).

the difference is that in boys the skin is cut off while in girls the whole clitoris is removed and often the vulva is stiched shut with only a small opening for urine and menstruation to come out.

[Anonymous]

My first baby is due in February, and we don't know the gender. If it's a boy, we've decided that we won't circumcize. To us, the research did not provide a compelling reason _to_ do it, so we opted against it.

Ultimately, though, it's up to each individual family, and I think either decision is just fine. For me, part of the reason the decision was so intense was that I felt like it was the first time I would make a lasting decision about someone else's life! Of course, I've already made lots of decisions impacting this child's life (obviously!), but somehow this decision really made me realize how huge of an impact I would have on my baby's life. Not trying to make a case either way (like I said, valid arguments on both sides), but just suggesting that perhaps this is one reason this decision is so hard for so many to make and so hotly debated (everywhere, not just here!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i read in several places that babies often don't cry during circumcision because they actually go into shock, because of the pain. i am not sure if this is true, but it made sense to me that if someone cut off part of my body, i'd go into shock. i am curious if anyone has seen research supporting this.

it does seem very hypocritical to me that we so willingly do this to boys and call it circumcision, but wouldn't think of doing it to girls (and we judge harshly those in other cultures who do it to girls and call it mutilation).

before going into shock you have to cry a lot!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is 15:04 again. we did not circumcise AND we are jewish we non-circumcising jews do exist!

New poster here. We're also Jewish and chose NOT to circumcise DS.