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May 2011 Moms
Gigi2195
member
Circumcision?
Gigi2195
member
What are your opinions on circumcising your boys?
I'm on the fence. My husband wants to have our son circumcised to minimize infections, bacteria and smells. I can't seem to understand how I could actually put my child through that painful procedure. I'm sure that his father can show him how to properly maintain that area so that he doesn't have problems later on.
What do you ladies think?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Circumcision?
Oh no, don't start this debate again.
DH and I are going to do it for our son simply for the reasons your DH stated! I don't know if I can stand being there when our LO has it done so maybe DH will be there. I worked in a surgical facility when I was in undergrad and I just saw too many little boys and even men having circumcisions because of repetitive infections. Most little boys just wont clean themselves the way they should and as they grew into older men (I'm talking guys in their 60s and 70s) they were unable to care for themself properly.
I'd rather my LO have the procedure shortly after birth than having to take him when he is six or seven years old. Thats just my opinion, everyone has their own.
There are a lot of different opinions about this and I think it is a personal choice for you and DH. However, we are getting our son circumcised for several reasons, including the following.
My much younger brother was adopted out of foster care when he was 2. He had not been circumcised at birth, we assume mostly because state medical doesn't pay for it. All of the Drs. told my parents it would never be an issue. When he was 6, he got an infection and his penis swelled up to twice it's size. After repeated infections, the Drs. recommended surgery and he was circumcised at age 7. By that point he was so freaked out by it, he refused to even touch it to clean it. It was very traumatic and a fairly major surgery for a 7 year old.
While I told DH it was his decision (I don't have a penis so I figured he'd know more than I do), I am relieved he decided to get it done. Not being a mom right now, the idea of pushing back the foreskin to clean baby's penis made me a little uncomfortable- I'm sure I would have gotten used to it though.
DH has heard horror stories from men who had to get it done as adults- he doesn't remember being circumcized and would rather our baby boy doesn't either.
It is a personal decision. As for us, we never considered not having it done.
ETA: As for the pain of the procedure, it's pretty temporary. My sister is raising her family Jewish and has 3 boys. They've each had a Bris and I attended 1 or 2 of them (they live OOS). It's over quickly and the baby is ok soon after. Of course, there's the same care afterward. But the procedure is quick and, as a pp mentioned, he won't remember it.
Photo by J Shelton Photography
Married 10/5/08 | 2 yrs of TTC, tests, procedures & a m/c | IVF #2 =James!
We adopted our first son and weren't able to get him circumcised until 3 months of age (had to get permission from the state since he wasn't legally our child yet).
The doctors dipped his pacifier in sugar water and that, somehow, subdues them and there wasn't any crying. He never cried when we had to clean it.
We opted for it because my husband mentioned that locker room boys are horribly mean, and don't want to cause him that pain. (And you have no idea how many times we were questioned by friends or family that was changing his diaper and had never seen an uncircumcised penis. They made fun of the turtle neck.)
And I have read countless studies that say that boys with a circumcised penis have lower risk of getting and spreading STDs, including the HPV virus to their partner. (It was just mentioned again on a major news website, but I don' remember where or I would provide the link.)
The baby won't remember the pain. But, in the end, it's a personal decision for you and the father to make together.
This, Plus, for some religion plays a role.
Once, again anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything. Yes, some people who aren't circumcised have problems, and some people on this board know some of these people. Then again, some poor babies have their penis butchered by circumcision. We can go on and on about people we know or have heard of. This doesn't prove anything.
MH and I were in your exact position. I was against it and he was for it. After doing some research together, we have both decided against it. If our son wants to have it done later in life, so be it, but I am not going to make that decision for him. I will not choose to put him through a voluntary cosmetic procedure that is done for no reason (no medical organization in the US recommends it). Also, in most other countries it is not an automatic thing.
It is something that you have to make an active decision about. Unless it is for religious reasons, I get really upset when people say that they don't even think about not doing it.
Okay, you now have my two cents and I will walk away.
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This, exactly!
We are still team green. However, being Jewish, we know any boys we have will be circumcised. Honestly, I know I will have a freak out, "OMG, why am I letting them hurt my baby!" moment. I also know that he will (from all the ones I've been to) be happy and content once his clothes are back on and he is being held. He will also never remember it.
Its a personal decision, and both DH and I agree we are happy it was essentially made for us.
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Wedding/Honeymoon Pictures
No, we didn't circumcise or son and won't if this one is a boy, either. If he wants it done when he is older we will pay for it, but it will be his choice. As a L&D nurse my mom became very anti-circumcision and has a few pretty bad horror stories about botched ones, and I would rather him go through a bit of discomfort while not being circ'd than go through his life with that. Most turn out fine. Most babies who AREN'T circ'd turn out fine. But I would rather err on the side of "his penis, his choice".
If we were to do it, we would either go to a Mohel (we are not Jewish) or a pediatric urologist. I do not want an OB doing it, let alone a student (which often happens in teaching hospitals).
All that said, I couldn't give a crap what other people do. Where we live it is about 50/50.
For us, it's a religious thing as well. We're raising the boys Jewish, so they'll be circumcised. The decision wouldn't have changed if we weren't raising them Jewish though (which we didn't decide to until about a month ago). It's sort of a personal preference, but before the religion decision, I had decided to let my DH decide as well. He was all for it as well, he didn't want our boys to remember getting cut.
I don't think there's a right or wrong choice here. Many men who are circumcised after birth resent that their parents made that choice for them and go through surgeries to get their foreskin back (I'm not sure how this is done exactly, but I've heard that this does happen). I've heard of boys having higher incidences of STDs and other infections when the foreskin is left in place due to poor hygiene. There are definite pros and cons to each decision and none is wrong.
For the record, I don't think keeping the foreskin intact is a bad thing. I don't think circumcision is a bad thing. You and your DH need to decide for yourself based on honest communication and mutual research, not what some women on TB have decided to do. GL with your decision!
This. Right on sister.
A couple random points:
- foreskin doesn't retract for the first few years, so it isn't an issue either way with baby care. It is something to teach about hygiene later on, when the child is likely old enough to do it himself.
-there are pain relief options - freezing for the procedure, tylenol/motrin following - that lessen the pain. I'm not Jewish, so if we do decide to circumcise it will be with appropriate pain relief for our son.
-we're still doing research and will talk to our doctor, but I've done a lot of reading and most of the objective stuff indicates that the cost/benefit analysis is roughly equal. It's not strongly right or wrong to get it done or not done from a medical standpoint. It really is the parents' choice.
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Darmca- That's some dangerous misinformation you have there about pushing back a baby's foreskin to clean it... It's dangerous to intact babies who could be hurt by such invasive treatment that could cause scarring or infection (would you stick your finger inside a baby girl to clean her vagina and then blame the infections she gets on the fact that she wasn't cleaned "well enough"?)
...and it's dangerous to intact babies who stand to be circumcised because their inhibited mothers are afraid of doing something they aren't even supposed to do!! By the way- circumcising a child does not mean that you never have to do anything ever again to clean them- in fact- with circumcised kids you ARE supposed to push back the foreskin to make sure that adhesions don't form. Google penile adhesions circumcision. There are plenty of moms right here on theBump who are dealing with that and had NO IDEA before they circumcised their child that this would be a problem. Some of these kids are circumcised again or go through very painful tearing of the adhesions by their doctor. More circumcised boys are circumcised twice than intact boys ever need to be circumcised a first time. Many women are surprised that the circumcised baby penis looks nothing like a circumcised adult penis, and when the baby gets chubby sometimes their whole penis tucks into the fat pad and they describe having to "pop it out" to clean it. Until a man has his adult size penis no one knows how much skin he will need to cover it, so circumcision is just guesswork with a very imprecise outcome- one that the circumcised person typically just has to accept without question. I had a boyfriend who had pubic hair covering his penis up to his circumcision scar... of course when he was circumcised he didn't HAVE pubic hair- so how horribly he was damaged was never even known by his doctor or parents. Just because adult men can TELL their horror stories does not mean that babies suffer any less. Perhaps the inability to understand or vocalize what hurts them should be something we mothers are compassionate towards rather than exploitative of.
To the OP, I don't understand why you suggested that your husband would be the one to teach your son personal hygiene ... it's something mothers can do too, and just because your husband may not be familiar with the anatomy or reluctant to tackle that task- it doesn't mean that the boy will be left in the dark on this. My husband is circumcised and our sons are not and that has never been a problem for us. I am a stay at home mom and I do 95% of the childcare anyway. The real issue most circumcised dads are struggling with is the emotional situation caused by questioning the value of what was done to them. It's very hard to look critically at these questions "Is washing your favorite body part really such a chore?" "Is it wrong to invest your child's body in a social paradigm that rejects that natural male body as freakish?" "Is it OK for a person's first experience of their genitals to be one of excruciating pain?" "When a baby is born, a mother is also born, what is the message (and the social purpose of that message) when we focus on this most delicate place of her newborn child and ignore her instincts in regards to protecting her perfect baby?" (can't we cherish the child and nurture the mother's maternal instinct as it blossoms?) My husband started out adamantly insisting that any son would be circumcised... and now that he has had the time to painfully process all the stuff (which circumcising a person in infancy does not allow you to process consciously) he is very angry that his body was violated by a circumciser (by the way his parents did not give their consent- he was circumcised in a time when doctors just did it automatically and didn't even ask... his father was intact but he never knew that when he tried to tell me that a boy MUST look like his father.)
We're having a girl, but if we ever have a boy, we won't have it done.
DH is not circumcised and before him I would have said yes, I will do that with my son. But DH cleans his, it's not hard and he will show our son. You simply pull the skin back and tight so there are no creases.
As a TMI, DH had fun as a kid when he realized he could use the skin as a squirt gun in the bathtub. I learned this when I had a bath with him and he shot my wiht water? boys will always be boys! LOL!