Hey, I am going to open a bucket of worms with this one but my hubs and I are both on the fence over whether to circumcise or not.
I really want your honest opinion and possibly whether you chose to with older siblings in your house.
Please no calling people out or arguing their decision really I want it to be where those of us who aren’t sure can think about more pros and cons and hear others thoughts.
I think in the end, after the full family discussion I will probably have my hubs decide/ back what he prefers he has more direct info than me...
Re: Boy moms question... sensitive topic.
I use to work in a nursing home in high school, once I received my CNA, I would help clean the residents. None of the men were circumcised and it was difficult to clean them at times, especially if they had some sort of infection. Also, one of my high school friends was not circumcised, after he graduated, he had the surgery done. He claimed it was easier for him to keep himself clean.
I know my sister was on the fence about it when she had her son about two years ago but decided to go through with the circumcision.
All in all, my son did very well with recovery and being circumcised hasn't really effected him, hes only 3 though.
I agree that that it’s a family decision and don’t understand why people get so heated over the topic.
prevously helloblueeyes
Me:32 DH:33 Married:04/2012 DD:07/2014
BFP 8/14/2018 #2 due 4/18/2019
H: 36
L & N twin girls: 3yo. Born at 30 weeks. 2 month NICU stay
BFP Aug 2018: EDD April 2019
Just don’t let anyone bully you into making a decision based on their beliefs or make you feel bad for your decision.
I don’t have a penis and therefore don’t feel qualified to have an opinion. Defer to DH.
with DD, DH was undecided. With this one, he is strongly against. His research shows cleanliness is not a strong reason to circumcise, he is against unnecessary surgery, he doesn’t want to take away the choice from potential DS (though one can sorta regrow a foreskin by attaching weights for like, 2 years), and while he doesn’t equate it with FGM he does think it may decrease sexual pleasure to a certain extent.
I'm against it since it isn't medically necessary and it's making a permanent decision for my baby's body before they're aware enough to make their own choice. DH's argument against waiting and letting them choose in the future is that the procedure is more complicated/painful the older they are (again, supposedly).
We've had issues with DS1, mostly (I believe) because they didn't take enough foreskin so he tends to get sore underneath. My sister circumcised her oldest boy and had so many problems with it reattaching/infections that she chose not to circumsize her second boy. Neither of them seem to care that they "look different," from their brother. (Although that is DH's argument for circumsizing this boy as well, since he and DS1 both are.)
There is a slightly increased risk for UTI with uncircumcised men, but it’s very very small. Something like an increase from 5% occurrence to 7% occurrence. And still generally preventable with proper hygiene. Old people get UTIs a lot regardless of circumcision.
At first my husband wasn’t sure and was worried about his son looking different. But the second he was born, my husband decided he couldn’t stand to cause him that kind of pain for no medical reason. And my son has never noticed or questioned the difference between him and his father.
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004217.pub2/abstract
ETA. I obviously have strong feelings about this. But to husbands who want to circ their sons, I would ask them to think carefully about how (in adulthood) they would feel about someone cutting off some of their penis, without pain management.
This sounds weird but I don't think many men/boys remember being circumcised so while it is a painful (and potentially not a necessary) procedure, I don't know of any men holding ill will towards their parents for making a decision to circumcise.
The Canadian Pediatrics Association no longer recommends non-medical circumcision. If you are living in a nation with a developed healthcare system (i.e., not sub-Saharan African nations) there are extremely limited health benefits to circumcision, which all virtually disappear with proper care and cleaning of the foreskin.
Lastly I will add that prior to hubs I was with a partner who had to have adult circumcision. It wasn't fun, no surgery is, but it also wasn't end of the world and he was far less hung up on it than my hubs is about being circumcised against his will.
DS1 is 7. DD is 1. DS2 is coming in late April.
I have another friend who’s baby is 12 weeks old and his wasn’t fully done and they will have to go back to get the rest removed as there are bits dangling about.
I nannied a little Korean boy who was not and didn’t feel it was difficult to keep him clean.
We we are Christian but no Jewish roots and don’t feel a religious pull towards circumcision.
There are slightly reduced risks of penile cancer and stds but I feel like generally the medical pros for it are negated by good hygiene and safe practices later in life...
ao literally its it’s going to come down to what my hubs wants for him.
1. It’s easier to care fore as a baby, you just wash the out side along with their bottom, the foreskin doesn’t retract until they are older.
2. We didn’t want to have any other procedures or newborn care which can be a factor if your kid has other issues or surgery needs (we had a tongue tie release and was glad we didn’t circumcise).FYI: Pain of circumcision & recovery can interfere with bonding and breastfeeding but doesn’t always.
3. Our insurance didn’t cover it since it’s considered an elective (cosmetic) procedure on my plan in my state.
4. We feel confident in our comfort level and ability to take care of his hygiene needs for him, teach our son hygiene, teach him to wash his hands before touching himself, talk to him about sex and masturbation etc. (I don’t see this a any different from what you would do with a little girl - wash hands before touching your vulva and vagina, rinse with water between the folds etc boy- wash your hands before touchingly your penis, once foreskin retracts gently pull back and rinse with water) this is NBD.
5. Why does Daddy look different? Daddy had surgery when he was a baby that we felt you didn’t need.
6. Body autonomy, we want our children to be involved and make decisions about permanently altering their own bodies, wherever medically possible. (He was too little with the tongue tie but it was medically necessary).
Edit it to add (my son interrupted me earlier today:
2.5: all procedures include risk: having s reaction to the anasthetic/ pain management drugs, side effects, infection, complications (just search circumcision complications and check stats for how often they crop up)
7. We have no strong cultural or religious reasons to circumcise other than my whole family and DH’s family are but I didn’t find that compelling.
**My MIL did tell me his ‘ant eater’ was weird when he was a NB but she is very conservative and has never seen anyone but her husband and sons so new/different always takes folks a minute to adjust to. I very confidently told her that our pediatrician didn’t recommend it, our insurance didn’t cover it and that we didn’t want to take on additional risks for an elective procedure and we never talked about it again. She seems to have gotten past it and always says how perfect he is just how God made him. She couldn’t ask for a more beautiful healthy grandson.
i do have strong opinions on why i didn’t want to circumcise, but my husband’s experiences w/ an uncircumcised penis put him on the opposing side. he just kept insisting that circumcised boys have an easier life than uncircumcised boys. and while i wholly believe that is just buying into baseless societal expectations, and that my husband & i are progressive enough to combat that and raise confident men, i felt like i had zero experience to argue against my husband. so that’s why we circumcised.
but every time i think about it, i wish my husband and i had discussed it more. i wish i had more time to convince him otherwise.
We're opting to not (if it's a boy). Main points boil down to:
- no reason to
- if possible, leaving bodily decisions up to the person
Considering that it seems to be mostly aesthetic/religious (although there are exceptions to this as people mentioned in this thread), we believe it should be something that one opts into if it seems desirable or necessary later. While an older child/adult will remember the pain more, I think that's an acceptable tradeoff in terms of giving them agency over their body. Obviously parents have to make lots of decisions for their children before they are able to make their own, but this just seems like an unnecessary one.
Also, I'd like to put it out there that while deference to someone who has experience with living with a penis is reasonable, seems like it should still be at least somewhat a joint decision, in my opinion.
If if you have strong feelings this time get to the bottom of it, you are allowed to do things differently with each child if your view changes. One of my aunts has one son circumcised and one intact. It’s ok. It’s also ok to circumcise if that’s right for your family. Hugs.
It is not medically necessary. It inflicts pain and takes away an important part of a male (the foreskin). It is not just a piece of skin. It actually has 16 functions including protecting the glands, keeping the penis moisturized, and a lot of nerve endings/sensation.
With an intact baby, you just need to know not to retract. Ever. There is no reason. It will retract on its own when he gets older. You wipe like a finger and that's it. It is so easy.
More often than not when you hear about infections and issues with an intact boy it is because he was orematuprem retracted.
I'm actually more nervous to change my daughters diaper than my son.
I know a few regret mom's (I almost was one). I haven't met a single mom who regrets keeping her son intact. You dont regret giving your son the ability to decide for himself about what he wants done to his own body.
Since this is the decision we have made, what I'm trying to focus on now is the best way to go about it. Should it be done at the hospital or by a pediatrician after we've taken him home? I definitely want to make sure that more than just a topical numbing agent is used. It's not a decision made lightly, so I want to make sure we take great care in planning for it and the aftercare.
Personally, in the culture and climate that we are raising boys in, the appearance of the penis isnt as concerning as what they will be doing with said penis (but that's a topic for another thread).
Married: 6/2016
TTC:6/2016
BFP: 11/22/2016 | EDD: 7/29/2017