The Circumcision Decision: Know the Facts Before Going Through with It

Note: While clearly opinionated, this article is not intended to compel you to go one way or another on the issue of circumcising your child. Unless you are religiously inclined to do so, the only way to determine for yourself whether your decision is "right" is by feeling comfortable with it. Sometimes, even religion is no help at all, becoming more of a compelling factor than a comforting one. I myself am a case in point; being Jewish and at the same time strongly against circumcision, I awaited the birth of my first child with some trepidation, knowing that a boy would undoubtedly be circumcised while I stood there during the ceremony, wishing I could cut off the Mohel's thumbs with the same scalpel he used to cut off my baby's foreskin.

Luckily - for me and the Mohel both - my firstborn was a girl. However, since my wife and I are planning to have more children, the issue is not dead for me. For this reason, I have researched the topic vigorously and am now presenting my findings to you, issue by issue.

Issue No. 1: There really are no unambiguous statistics pointing at wide-ranging and significant health benefits of circumcision. The only scientifically proven benefit is in a reduced risk of contracting HIV/AIDS from unprotected sex, because the virus appears to enter the body most readily through micro-scratches in the foreskin. Aside from that, as long as proper hygiene is exercised, there is no difference in the retention of bacteria between circumcised and uncircumcised males. In fact, it can be easily counter-argued that the head of the penis is more vulnerable to trauma and infection with the protective layer of the foreskin removed.

Issue No. 2: Circumcision is an extremely traumatic experience for a baby precisely because, by being splayed on an operating table, he is forced into an unnatural position so early after exiting the womb. The pain from the procedure itself does not last long, because the neural connections between pain receptors and the brain are still tenuous, and if the child is swaddled and fed right afterwards, he would not even cry a lot and will be asleep shortly thereafter. It is being forced into a spread-eagled position, held fast by hard straps, and left on a table for an indeterminate amount of time that causes the child the most trauma; indeed, increasingly more studies appear in today's academia pointing at long-term psychological repercussions of a circumcision performed in a hospital setting.

A religious circumcision - in this case, the Jewish Bris - is performed at home, with a child surrounded by loving (but very nervous) parents and grandparents. The child spends the entire ceremony on a soft pillow and is not secured for the procedure until the very last possible moment, and even then it is done by soft, warm human hands rather than Velcro straps.

Issue No. 3: Practically every child is born jaundiced, because the liver is too immature to handle billirubin produced by the breakdown of red blood cells. This is especially true for premature babies. Getting a child circumcised 2-3 days - or even less - into his life, as done in a hospital, is WAY too early because the open wound causes a spike in billirubin levels. If left untreated, high billirubin may cause long-lasting neurological damage, but even in a best-case scenario, the baby will likely need phototherapy (kind of a tanning booth for newborns). This in turn means in-hospital stay - and significant physical discomfort - for both the baby and the mother and lots of severely frayed nerves for the rest of the family. As if this is not enough, a check of billirubin levels requires a blood test, and the only way to draw blood from a newborn is by cutting his/her heel and squeezing blood out - a procedure that takes anywhere between 25 seconds and 2 minutes, depending on the proficiency of the technician drawing blood. I do not wish on you to stand there, holding your baby's upper body to keep him/her from squirming too much and hearing him/her scream, knowing full well that he/she is hurting and you can do absolutely nothing about it. (This is not an assumption - this is something we've gone through with our daughter.)

A Jewish Bris is performed eight days after birth, which is usually enough for a healthy, properly nursing baby to get over the "mechanical" jaundice experienced at birth. If the child is still jaundiced, however, the ceremony is usually postponed.

Issue No. 4: Circumcision desensitizes the gland of the penis and reduces sexual sensations in adulthood. Men circumcised soon after birth would not know the difference, of course, but a number of studies conducted with men who have undergone circumcision after becoming sexually active reported a drop in sexual sensation and overall satisfaction with sexual intercourse by as much as 80 percent.

Issue No. 5: There is no lasting psychological damage in the child's finding out that his penis looks different from his father's, if such is the case. The foreskin could be rolled back to show that there really is no difference in appearance - in fact, the matters could be reversed by saying that the child has something that his father is missing, thus boosting the boy's confidence. As to being the same as the majority of his peers, recent statistics indicate that only slightly more than one-half of all the boys in the U.S. were circumcised at the end of the twentieth century - and the number of circumcisions continues to drop, falling below 40 percent in the western U.S. This means that a boy is just as likely to interact with peers who are circumcised as with the ones who are not (religious communities where circumcision is universally practiced are an exception, of course).

Issue No. 6: This is particularly important to remember if you have been agonizing over the decision for a while and still are not feeling comfortable either way. Circumcision is irreversible - even with plastic surgery reconstruction of the foreskin, it is impossible to return the nerve endings and the lubricating functions provided by the original one. On the other hand, not circumcising your child gives him a choice to do so in the future. True, the recovery process is significantly more painful later in life, but at least the decision will be made in full conscience by a person to whom the body part actually belongs.

Sources used in this article (just a few - the list is too long):

"Circumcision Fact Sheet." Circumcision Information Resource Centre at: http://www.infocirc.org/facts.htm
Fleiss, Paul M. (1997). "The Case against Circumcision." Mothering: The Magazine of Natural Family Living (Winter): 37-45.
Jenkins, Mark. (1998). "Separated at Birth." Men's Health (July/August): 130-135, 163. Online at: http://www.noharmm.org/separated.htm
Krauz, Iris. (1999). "Circumcision Has Few Health Benefits." Jewish Circumcision Resource Center at: http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/haaretz99.htm