(AP Photo Mark Humphrey)
The web is peppered with articles about circumcision. But for parents there is a vital area of information about circumcision that often goes unaddressed: What could go wrong?
Circumcision is a surgical procedure, and as such it does have complications. However, no medical organization tracks complication rates or severity, so it's hard to find a good estimate of either. When making medical decisions on behalf of their children, parents deserve and need complete information about any procedure and its hazards.
Digging deep reveals surprising facts. Complications range in severity from the "mild:" excessive bleeding, infection (including antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus), to the severe: surgically caused genital deformity, accidental amputation, and even death. And complication rates are higher in children circumcised shortly after birth than in older children (and presumably adults also), possibly because surgery on such a small child is more intricate.
Addressing complications
Tissue removed in a circumcision cannot truly be replaced or re-grown. However, there are so many complications from infant circumcision that there is a flourishing sub-specialty of pediatric urologists who treat children with severe circumcision-induced complications.
Dr. David Gibbons is one such pediatric urologist serving the Washington, DC area. He has seen so many bad results from circumcision in his practice that he wishes the procedure would fall out of favor. Here is a post of his reproduced in entirety to preserve completeness of his point of view.
Neonatal circmcision [sic] is totally unnecessary, and there is no current role for preventative or prophylactic neonatal circumcision.
Unfortunately, 70-80% of neonatal circumcisions are performed by obstetricians, who can neither manage their complications (2-5% incidence) nor obtain proper informed consent (defined as outlining risks and benefits of a procedure, as well as alternatives-including nothing) for neonatal circumcision. Currently, the American College of OB-GYN (ACOG) have no paramenters [sic] for training (learning and performing neonatal circumcision, managing complications) of residents, who then go out and continue this practice.
In my practice, as a pediatric urologist, I manage the complications of neonatal circumcision. For example, in a two year period, I was referred >275 newborns and toddlers with complications of neonatal circumcision. None of these were 'revisions' because of appearance, which I do not do. 45% required corrective surgery (minor as well as major, especially for amputative injury), whereupon some could be treated locally without surgery.
Complications of this unnecessary procedure are often not reported, but of 300 pediatric urologists in this country who have practices similar to mine...well, one can do the math, to understand the scope of this problem...let alone, to understand the adverse cost-benefit aspect of complications (>$750,000) in this unfortunate group of infants and young children.
Fortunately, neonatal circumcision is on the decline as parents become educated...but the complications still continue.
Until the time that the USA falls in step with the rest of the planet who does not submit newborns to neonatal circumcision, ACOG should assure that the training of obstetricians to perform this procedure is adequate, particularly in avoiding and managing complications of a procedure that is unnecessary, and that obstetricians learn to obtain proper informed consent from parents who have no idea of the problems that can ensue.
Conclusion
The United States is the only country where doctors routinely perform neo-natal circumcision. The risks for any surgery, including circumcision, are highest for newborns. Generally, parents do not receive true informed consent about circumcision through their doctors because there is a systematic failure to collect that information and make it available to doctors. Circumcision is an optional procedure; it puts the child at risk for serious complications that can be avoided entirely by not circumcising.
A 1993 review of circumcision complications in Britain. This reference is suggested despite its age because the procedure has changed little, and there have been few other studies of such depth.
Intact America
The National Circumcision Information Resource Center
Doctors Opposing Circumcision
Attorneys for the RIghts of the Child
Comments
I didn't know that complication rates are higher for neonates than for older children, and I'll bet most other people don't either. It seems easier to deny the personhood of the very young, whether they are humans whose foreskin is routinely cut off, puppies whose tails and dewclaws are routinely clamped off, or piglets whose testicles are routinely torn out, tails cut off, and ears notched. Is this not bizarre? Not even our own species is immune. Thank you for bringing this to my awareness.
Actually, infant circumcision is one of the less risky surgical procedures performed with a risk rate of around 0.2%. The real deal is to make sure the doctor performing the circumcision is well trained and uses anesthesia & pacification to help with any pain (a good deal of baby boys sleep through it).
More info on this can be found here:
www.circinfo.net/risks_of_circumcision.html
"A good deal of baby boys sleep through it"
Yeah, after they go into shock.
even 1 baby dying from this elective procedure is too many, and there are an average of 120 deaths in america alone. not to mention all the other potential implications of a botched circumcision, including loss of penis. circumcisers are perpetrators of the worst kind of sexual violence against baby boys.
Pay no attention to the circumfetishist in the room (Circ Info).
There are a few sick people out there who derive sexual pleasure from the sight and thought of a person being circumcised (even children in pain). Those people are known as circumfetishists - and they make it their mission to promote genital cutting to as many people as possible. Some known circumfetishists operate websites that many parents turn to for help/guidance on this issue. Beware anyone by the name of Brian Morris, Jake Waskett, or sites like:
infocirc.com
circinfo.com*
circinfo.net*
circlist.com
circs.org
*NOT to be confused with the reputable site CircInfo.org
These circumfetishists falsely cloak themselves as people/groups who only have a desire to provide 'accurate' info to parents. This is merely their cover. Many unsuspecting people are clueless as to the underlying motivations of people like Brian Morris, Jake Waskett, and others associated with CircInfo and Gilgal. But those sexual fetish motivations have *everything* to do with their active promotion of circumcision in various arenas.
They don't fall asleep, they go into SHOCK!
Too bad you think that a .2% chance of complications or death is acceptable. If it were my child NO risk would be acceptable.
Actually, circumcision has a 100% complication rate. There's this little complication of ending up with an INCOMPLETE PENIS, you see.
CircInfo, a known pro-circ advocate, can try to minimize the complication rate by saying it is only 0.2%, but his number contradicts that given by the doctor quoted above. I think I would believe a doctor in this case than an anonymous commenter.
Regardless of the rate of complications, you have to admit that it is a pretty high rate of complications for a procedure that is done so frequently and for so long. For too long too many have trivialized the surgery as just a snip.
A little research will inform people that removal of the foreskin involves first separating the foreskin from glans, which are adhered together like your fingernail to your fingertip. After being separated, a portion of the foreskin is removed. If a Gomko clamp is used, the foreskin is crushed until the foreskin falls off. If a Plastibell is used, the foreskin is compressed with string so that the skin under it dies and the foreskin, with the Plastibell, falls off after a week. This is often done without anesthesia, although, glucose solution is often used. That is, they use sugar water to calm the baby during surgery.
With a little research on the web, it is amazing what one can learn about this obsolete procedure.
Every circumcision causes damage, a permanent deficit in sensual perception. The people involved in the business of cutting children's genitals have no right to be amputating healthy body parts from an individual who cannot understand or consent. Every circumcision done to someone without consent is a violation.
One of the complications rarely discussed is how this form of abuse self-perpetuates. Many who have been cut grow up to enforce that damage upon their own children in a classic pattern of child abuse. Some even set up websites to promote genital cutting of children.
Circumcision of infants and children is surgery without need or consent. This is an issue of human rights.
Every circumcision causes damage, a permanent deficit in sensual perception. The people involved in the business of cutting children's genitals have no right to be amputating healthy body parts from an individual who cannot understand or consent. Every circumcision done to someone without consent is a violation.
One of the complications rarely discussed is how this form of abuse self-perpetuates. Many who have been cut grow up to enforce that damage upon their own children in a classic pattern of child abuse. Some even set up websites to promote genital cutting of children.
Circumcision of infants and children is surgery without need or consent. This is an issue of human rights.
So now in Calif. cows have more protective rights than males. It is illegal to dock a cow's tail done by shears or by strangulating cord. Methods also of male circumcision.
There are men whose erect penis is hourglass shaped because of a problem unique to the Plastibell method when the ring slips down the shaft and strangulates creating a circumferential non expandable scarring of the outer skin.
All infant circumcisions require tearing away the foreskin from the glans just like the nail from the finger. This creates scarring from the cut up to include the tip of the glans.
Brain damage is also done. Circumcision removes sensory parts of the body. Brain cells no longer receiving neural impulses atrophy and die. Then adjacent cells grow into the dead space chaotically.
Any doctor who circumcises after 1996, when premier foreskin researcher Dr. John Taylor reported 65% - 85% of the sexual receptors are lost to circumcision, and did not disclose this fact is liable to be sue
SexAsNatureIntendedIt.com
"Top Ten (10) Ways Circumcised Male Sex Hurts Women!"
40,000 valuable nerve endings severed in penis amputation. The natural gliding action during sexual intercourse is lost. And of course, the natural life-long protection of the glans for the male during non-sexual life is lost.
OK, but male genital mutilation (or "circumcision") cannot properly be classified as "surgery".
According to Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, "surgery" is defined as: 1. The art, practice, or work of treating diseases, injuries, or deformities by manual or operative procedures.
As the normal, natural, intact penis is neither diseased, injured, or deformed, every attempt to remove all or part can only be characterized not as surgery, but as genital mutilation.
what you say is totally crazy, you know nothing about this.
I was recircumcised when I was little and have problems with painful erections and scar tissue that needs to be lasered off.
Neo-natal circumcision is child abuse, pure and simple. What right has a parent to decide to allow the amputation of a childs body parts, what next, routine removal of the appendix, just to save having it done later, and just in case the child MIGHT contract appendicitis, where does it end?
Is it morally right for a parent to take an infant to a tattoo parlour and mark the child for life, so why is it right to remove a body part against the childs will?
A child is a person, not he possession of an adult to do with as they please.
Thank you Ryan
Our 2 sons are happily intact... as are many of the baby boys I know in York County PA. There is absolutely no reason to subject a newborn infant to what is essentially "cosmetic surgery"... especially since the original, intact penis is perfect the way it is.
Circinfo is LYING plain and simple..0.2%?
How does he explain away these actual studies (rather than his unsupported OPINION)?
Complication rates..
and the lies of the AAP.
Even if these rates were only 1/10 of what they are, cumulatively they would far exceed the ridiculous numbers claimed by the AAP.
1. iatrogenic Phimosis 2.9%
2. Adhesions 71%
3. Meatal ulcers 31%
3. Meatal stenosis 8%
4. infection up to 10%
5. Bleeding <35%
1. JOURNAL OF UROLOGY, Volume 169, Number 6: Pages 2332-2334,
June 2003.
Outpatient Management of Phimosis Following Newborn Circumcision.
H. Jason Blalock, Vijaya Vemulakonda, Michael L. Ritchey, Michaelene Ribbeck
2. JOURNAL OF UROLOGY; Volume 164 Number 2: Pages 495-496, August 2000.
Penile adhesions after neonatal circumcision.
Ponsky LE, Ross JH, Knipper N, Kay R
3. CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL, Volume 95: Pages 576-581,
September 10, 1966.
The Problem of Routine Circumcision
http:/
"infection (including antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus)"
MRSA a doctor just told me has no cure. The infected person carries it for life ready to spring out when immune depressed.
Mogen clamp company has been put out of business because after loosing 3 lawsuits on complications.
The HourGlass is another circumcision complication caused by the Plastibell ring that leaves for life the erect penis being HourGlass shaped.
Part of the reason that there are so many complications is that the surgery is treated so casually and frankly approached rather carelessly. It's the only surgery I know of where the operators are either inexperienced doctors in training getting their surgical practice on male neonates, surgeons who specialize in the female and not male reproductive system, doctors who are not surgeons at all (peds and family practice) or even non-physicians like advanced practice nurses. It's the only surgery I know of that is often done in assembly line fashion or in rooms that are filled with other babies.
Moreover, the techinques and instruments used for the surgery are rather big and clumsy, making the (often unsuccessful attempt at being idiot proof). It's a quick and dirty surgery done on tiny and delicate parts, so it's no wonder that the results are often less than perfect.
The medical establishment is very good at covering its screwups though. The reported complication rate of .2% is laughable, but many people still buy it. One only has to read parenting message boards to see story after story of boys with severe adhesions, buried penis and the need for later corrective surgery under general anesthesia. I wonder how many of those incidents made it into the .2% statistics?
One statement: "Circumcision is a surgical procedure ... " is incorrect. Pointing out the error is not a futile academic exercise, either.
"Surgery" according to Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, is "the art, practice, or work of treating diseases, injuries, or deformities ... " As amputating part of the intact penis in no sense qualifies, we must say that circumcision is not "surgery", but genital mutilation. Rood
Insurance companies are largly the ones to blame for parents rushing to circumcise. Most insurance companies will cover the proceedure if it is done before leaving the hospital after birth, and refuse to pay if you schedule it at a later date. Parents are thinking of the financial cost of the proceedure thanks to the Insurance companies.
And you don't have have any medical qualification to do it
We did research on the circinfo site that person above is from, it is linked to sexual fetish sites about children who are having circumcisions. I would not take my "accurate Information" from someone who obtains sexual pleasure from the thought that of convincing someone to circumcise their infant. Ewwwww!
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