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Attachment Parenting
Educate me on how to care for uncircumcised penis
My son is barely 2 years old. He is uncircumcised. Up until now we haven't treated it any different from a circumcised penis. We have never pulled the foreskin back. I hear conflicting theories on how to care for it. Some say to begin pulling the foreskin back to clean (I haven't done this), while others say not to do anything to it. DH is circumcised so we are new to this. Is there a point when we'll need to pull it back to clean it?
Who knows?
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Re: Educate me on how to care for uncircumcised penis
Both pedis that we have had said that the first time his foreskin should be pulled back is when he does it himself. One said he would probably get interested enough to do it between 2-3 years.
I wouldn't worry about it until he's a little older. DS messes around with pulling it back in the bath though.
We had to take DS to the pediatrician this winter because he was complaining all the time that his penis hurt. We had tried to pull his foreskin back once before the appt. but it seemed to us like it wouldn't go. We could tell there was smegma under there, though. DH was with him and said the pediatrician immediately pulled the foreskin all the way back with no issues or hesitation and that there was TONS of smegma (gross) and that he said from that point on we should pull it back and make sure it was clean regularly. DH does it probably once a week now during bath time (its apparently easier then, I don't know... I try to avoid this job if possible). We said we didn't realize that that needed to happen already as everyone has told us to never pull a baby's foreskin back and he said "Oh, he's not a baby anymore. You can pull it back now. This is what was bothering him, if it gets like that it can hurt" and that was that.
eta: At that point DS was about 28 months probably. We had never tried to pull his foreskin back before save the one time right before the appointment. We always assumed it COULDN'T go back but the pediatrician had absolutely no problem getting it back. I would guess the age varies a bit for each child but who knows.
Leave it alone. Don't mess with it. Most boys aren't fully retractible until they're 10 (average), and if you're still cleaning his privates at 10, you have more problems than a penis.
Most problems with uncircumcised penises come from "doing" something. Nature and God made him perfect and there's no reason to worry about anything - any more than you would worry about cleaning up "inside" a baby girl.
At some point, he may start "ballooning" a bit when he urinates if his foreskin starts to seperate from the glans; again, this probably will not happen for a LONG time. My husband's foreskin didn't seperate until he was 12 and started to, ahem, explore it a bit.
Premature seperation usually occurs only when babies have been forefully retracted before their bodies were ready for it. Retraction can cause infections and pain, so there's no reason to do it. If he does start to balloon, urine (which is sterile, remember) will do the cleaning for him until he's old enough to retract in the shower.
Caring for a natural penis is pretty darn simple. Just leave it alone until its owner is ready to clean himself.
My thoughts mirror Erinkate's.
(I have 2 intact sons 12 and 5 and this care/non-care has worked fine for us without any problems)
What I would add in addition to this thought... is that you do plan to give your son information about his body at an appropriate time.
Most boys initially do not pull their foreskin back- rather they stretch it forward (amazingly frighteningly far- lol) what's interesting about this- is when you think about adhesions (if there are any remaining) breaking loose- forward stretching is a way to gently begin to challenge those adhesions without seperating them and risking tearing which would happen if the foreskin was rolled back. So this funny game that boys play and invent all by themselves in the tub- is actually a brilliant approach to starting retractability.
Eventually a boy can be told about how the foreskin also goes back and about how to wash. Also information about the frenulum might be helpful at this point- because a lot of boys don't know that structure is a normal part of their anatomy- and they think that there is a section of skin stuck.