Circumcision

IsadoraB

DH and I have discussed this and while I do not want to circumcise (if we have a boy) he is undecided. 

My husband was not circumcised at birth because he and his twin sister were born 10 weeks premature and the hospital was more focused on trying to keep him alive for the next two months than on performing cosmetic procedures. DH said he was initially uncomfortable when showering in gym class at school because his penis looked different than the other boys (we are in the States) but no one teased him about it. He said it would have been fine if they did because he also noticed his penis was bigger so he had some good comeback lines for potential teasing. (HA!)

That being said, he is unsure if he wants our possible future son to be circumcised. Fortunately we still have time to decide. 

I also don't understand the fear of infections - are parents not teaching their sons to wash their dicks? DH said he never had an issue with it. My friends who have sons all chose to not have circumcisions done and they also have not had infection issues. 

silentdormancy

I don't want it done but my bf does..5 more months to decide. I don't see the point in mutilating my babies genitals for no reason.

housewifebecomesher

pickles26 said:

On the medical side of things, the biggest reason I would recommend circumcision to a patient (luckily I don't see newborns and infants) would be risk of having chronic high risk HPV infection. The high risk strains can cause cervical cancer, penile cancer and oral cancer. Circumcision makes it less likely that a man will get a chronic HPV infection and chronic HPV infection is a risk factor for penile cancer. We don't typically screen the foreskin and glans in males to check for cancer like we do paps smears for cervical cancer. If I see a young male patient that is not circumcised I do highly recommend HPV vaccine to them. The HPV vaccine is available and now recommended for males as it is for females. Other than that it is purely a personal decision and I see pros and cons on both sides of things. 

Side note about cervical/penile cancers:

Interestingly enough, when I recommend the HPV vaccine to parents of adolescent and teen boys and mention the risk of penile cancer 99% of them opt for the vaccine, conversely, when I talk to parents of adolescent and teen girls about the risk of cervical cancer, many are still against vaccination. 

I apologize for the rambling

This is fascinating and so frustrating! I know this thread is not the place for a conversation around this, but I find it so sad that female sexual health is so much lower on the priority scale than male sexual health. Especially after being through a loss personally. It's tragic! I have my own personal thoughts/feelings about the Affordable Care Act, but if nothing else, it has brought a few things to light around female health such as breast pump coverage. I won't touch the birth control topic...

littlebear&bugbug

My DS is intact and if this LO is a boy, he will be, too.

My husband actually was adamant about the decision before I had even done any research (he himself is circumcised). As far as "looks," his mom (my MIL) is Korean and his dad is white so he looks nothing like his dad and he says it never bothered him, he doesn't know why a different looking penis would be any different. As far as sex, there are a significant amount of nerve endings removed when cutting foreskin, so it only makes sense that the feeling during intercourse wouldn't be as strong if you were cut. And any girl or guy who would leave him just because of how he looks down there is probably not worth being with anyway. And as far as the AAP/HIV/HPV thing, I hope to heaven that we've trained our kids to rely on more than their foreskin to prevent STD's, lol!

The bottom line for us, though, was that it's his body. God made it whole so we're keeping it that way. If he wants to go through circumcision later, fine with me. But we don't feel comfortable making that decision for him.

For people on the fence, here are some of my experiences: our doctor is (sorry for the HORRID term,) "foreskin friendly" so I haven't really had to push for her to not retract with DS. He did have to have a catheter once because we thought he had a UTI and I did have to do a little gentle reminding to the hospital nurse but it really wasn't bad. And washing it isn't horrible either. They suggest just pulling the foreskin back as much as it will naturally go (not forcing it) and swishing it in the water. Other than the fact that it's like trying to hold on to a live minnow, it's one or two seconds and done. Now that he's 2, he can do it himself. Anyway, there you go. My opinion.

IsadoraB

pickles26 said:

IsadoraB said:

DH and I have discussed this and while I do not want to circumcise (if we have a boy) he is undecided. 

My husband was not circumcised at birth because he and his twin sister were born 10 weeks premature and the hospital was more focused on trying to keep him alive for the next two months than on performing cosmetic procedures. DH said he was initially uncomfortable when showering in gym class at school because his penis looked different than the other boys (we are in the States) but no one teased him about it. He said it would have been fine if they did because he also noticed his penis was bigger so he had some good comeback lines for potential teasing. (HA!)

That being said, he is unsure if he wants our possible future son to be circumcised. Fortunately we still have time to decide. 

I also don't understand the fear of infections - are parents not teaching their sons to wash their dicks? DH said he never had an issue with it. My friends who have sons all chose to not have circumcisions done and they also have not had infection issues. 

You'd be surprised. I've had a few parents that opted not to circ and then didn't realize that they needed to teach their child when older to retract the foreskin and clean under it. Of course when I see problems it's usually infection issues. I've also seen a pretty bad infection in an older gentleman that was in a nursing home for failure to properly clean under the foreskin.

That's disturbing. 

I just asked my husband if anyone ever taught him that he was supposed to pull the foreskin back to clean it and he said no, he feels like he just instinctually knew he should clean his dick. 

He then started talking about star bellied sneeches and I tuned out.