At birth, circumcision is more damaging for several reasons
1) The foreskin is fused to the glans. Forceful separation, a process that is required for circumcision, leaves the surface of the glans with pitting, adhesions, and cracks. Pitting is when chunks of the glans are torn off with the foreskin; adhesions are when chunks of the foreskin permanently fuse to the glans. Sometimes doctors refer to this bloody process with the euphemism "breaking the adhesions".
2) The procedure is less accurate. The infant's penis is small and it all hinges on how far forward the foreskin is pulled, and how much is removed. Because the penis is small it is much easier to make surgical mistakes due to the inaccuracy of human hands. At infancy the glans are retracted very far inside the foreskin so it is common to for an infant to loose any where from 35% to 80% of all the skin of his penis. (1)
3) Infants can not be given anaesthesia. Less then effective local anaesthesia is still not always used. In the recent past, anesthesia was used rarely if ever. (2)
Complications?
Infants can't complain about complications and when that happens they are not necessarily reported due to parental negligence resulting from their medical ignorance. Some people with complications grow up, have no idea any thing is wrong, only to discover why there penis is the way it is. There are a number of delayed complications that may not be documented or understood until much later, some of them generate a great deal of pain during erection others cause difficulty urinating. People with excessive skin loss may not even be aware of the fact that erections are not supposed to be painful.
This trauma leads to so many proven psychological and surgical complications. Surgical complications occur 2-10% of the time (3). This translates to a 1/50 chance to a 1/10 chance. It would be analogous to playing roulette with the future of your son's penis. Circumcision is a far more pressing and immediate danger to your son's penis then a foreskin could ever be.
Psychological and surgical complications include but not limited too, bleeding, infection, gangrene, necrosis, urinary retention, meatal ulceration, meatal stenosis, urethra fistula, hypospadias and epispadias, lymphedema, rapture of the organs, buried penis, peno-scrotal webbing, adhesions, impotence, excessive skin loss/denudation, chordee, cysts, skintags/bridges, pitting of the glans, loss of the penis and death. Others include but are not limited too Apnea, rapture of the lung, heart, stomach, and bladder, leg cyanosis, persistent vomiting, keloid formation, amputation of the glans, and even PTSD. Organs can rapture due to the trauma, crying, and convulsions. Of course you don't hear about this because an infant can't complain. But there is a lot of hysterical crying due to the pain and suffering for all these events. Infants can not be given anesthesia with out serious risk of complications in its administering. Documented complications are probably the most sizable set of documentation there is available about circumcision period. If you count more minor skin tags, complication rates as high as 55%(3) have been documented.
And worst of all, more then 117 (4) to 230(5) infants die from circumcision every year.
In fact more infants die form circumcision then adults die form penile cancer (penile cancer is extremely rare) (5). More infants die from circumcision then SIDS. More infants die form circumcision then infants die of smoke inhalation and car accidents combined during the first month of life.
One boy even had a blood infection that went to his brain causing permanent cerebral palsy. The types of complications are numerous and I could write about them with no end. Since circumcision is unnecessary so are all these complications.
(1) M. M. Lander, "The Human Prepuce," in G. C. Denniston and M. F. Milos, eds., Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy (New York: Plenum Press, 1997), 79-81. 2. M. Davenport, "Problems with the Penis and Prepuce: Natural History of the Foreskin," British Medical Journal 312 (1996): 299-301.]
(2) Stang , M.J., & Snellman, L.W. (1998). Circumcision practice patterns in the United States. Pediatrics, 101(6), http://pediatrics.aappublications.org... doi: 10.1542/peds.101.6.e5
(3)Williams, N; L. Kapila (October 1993). "Complications of circumcision". British Journal of Surgery 80 (10): 1231--1236. doi:10.1002/bjs.1800801005. PMID 8242285. http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/williams-kapila/. Retrieved 2006-07-11.
(4) Bollinger, Dan; Boy's Health Advisory (2010-04-26). "Lost Boys: An Estimate of U.S. Circumcision-Related Infant Deaths". Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies 4 (1): 78–90
(5) Gellis, SS. Circumcision. Am J Dis Child 1978;132:1168.
(6) J. P. Gearhart and J. A. Rock, "Total Ablation of the Penis after Circumcision with Electrocautery: A Method of Management and Long-Term Followu
to Pangolin:
""Infants can not be given anaesthesia." That's BS. They can, and do, receive anaesthesia for a variety of things. Penile blocks can be done for circs. I don't think they actually use them, but they could."
i know very well about Local anaesthetic and mentioned that! There are many techniques that i am familiar with for penile nerve blocks. Some of which have their own complications. These can only reduce pain.
What i meant to say is that infants can not be effectively anastasized. I will make sure to edit that in the future.
Platypus maff
TL;DR- Too long, didn't read. But don't circumcise your children bottom line.
Connor
You seriously need to knock it off with the rants and spam. Want to help out in this area? Answer questions. Don't "ask" a bunch of randm stuff that is only meant to cause crap, it's not going to get you any points with people. It just makes intactivists look bad.
-Connor
thom t
Connor is right that this would be better submitted as an answer to a question about circumcision, but I don't think you are "ranting". Also, you are in danger of getting a violation notice because it is not really a question.
Keep up the good work educating ignorant parents who want to mutilate their baby without doing enough research to make an informed decision.
Anyway, it shouldn't be parents' decision. The boy should be allowed to decide as an adult if he wants a functioning part of his body cut off!
EDIT: Pangolin, "a body part that's ugly no matter what you do to it..." ?
I don't know what to say to that; what a sick attitude,
Pangolin
"Infants can not be given anaesthesia." That's BS. They can, and do, receive anesthesia for a variety of things. Penile blocks can be done for circs. I don't think they actually use them, but they could.
I agree that they are usually unnecessary, though. It's cosmetic surgery for a body part that's ugly no matter what you do to it.
More of a rant than a question.
e w
It's interesting how doctors never disclose the adverse effects and complications resulting from male genital mutilation, called circumcision.
Other medical procedures require disclosure of the risks, but not circumcision.
And doctors aren't the only ones who perpetrate circumcision on infants; nurses and inexperienced medical students can indiscriminately hack away at male infants' genitals; it seems that just about anyone in a hospital can, except for the housekeeping staff.
But doctors are highly biased. They make money from circumcisions---first they charge the parents for mutilating their son's penis, and then they turn around and sell the amputated infant's foreskin for about $ 200 for use in such things as expensive cosmetic creams. (They get around the law prohibiting sale of body parts by claiming that it's "surgical waste,"---expensive surgical waste) Many of the doctors also belong to the religions that try to impose circumcision on all males.
And doctors NEVER address the psychological implications of individuals who discover what was done to them, the feelings of betrayal and violation at having their body mutilated by circumcision.
Several of the other answers have criticized you for your detailed question. I disagree with them; you've done your homework regarding male genital mutilation, and more parents need to do the same thing before they unthinkingly allow their sons to be mutilated by circumcision.
Circumcision is a fraud and a hoax.
A foreskin is not a birth defect; it is a birthright.
ERIC
Orignal From: Circumcision compilations?
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