More than half of parents in DC, Maryland, and Virginia choose to circumcise their boys. But are these parents ever really informed of the possible complications? Generally, no, and this failure in the informed consent process has significant consequences for many boys, for example the penile injuries discussed by a local pediatric urologist in this article.
But this physician sees only boys who live. How many children die each year as a result of circumcision in the US hasn't been recorded or even considered important by any medical establishment. A new study published last week in Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies estimates that more than 100 baby boys die from circumcision complications each year, including from anesthesia reaction, stroke, hemorrhage, and infection. Because infant circumcision is elective, all of these deaths are avoidable.
The study concluded: "These boys died because physicians have been either complicit or duplicitous, and because parents ignorantly said 'Yes,' or lacked the courage to say 'No.'" And called the deaths "an
unrecognized sacrifice of innocents."
The study found that approximately 117 neonatal (first 28 days after birth) circumcision-related deaths occur annually in the United States, one out of every 77 male neonatal deaths. The study also identified
reasons why accurate data on these deaths are not available, some of the obstacles to preventing these deaths, and some solutions to overcome them.
To put this in perspective, about 44 neonatal boys die each year from suffocation, and 8 from auto accidents. About 115 neonatal boys die annually from SIDS, nearly the same as from circumcision.
Comments
Nice article. But where did you get the numbers of deaths for auto accidents? I searched and found much higher numbers.
This looked at neonates or the first 28 days after birth. I think most stats focus on the first year.
People must remember that any numbers obtained regarding the deaths of circumcision are conservative at best; doctors have an insentive to cover up deaths due to circumcision and are known to attribute death to secondary causes, such as "hemmoraging," or "septic shock."
It looks like Americans are finally waking up to the circumcision hoax. We must demand doctors have the honesty and integrity and report the truth.
Right. This is similar to the outrageous under-reporting of complications and increased mortality from ab0rtion. In a large study done in FInland, ab0rtion has been shown to be four times deadlier than childbirth, but you're never going to hear that from the media.
Actually, if you think about it, ab0rtion is always more deadly than childbirth (or circumcision), since the baby always dies.
Triamoe,
Way to use a totally unrelated subject to propagate your political agenda.
We must remember when the equivalent procedure is performed on girls, we call it "female genital mutilation." Why don't we call it by what it is for boys, too?
Its not the same, when they mutilate a girl they do it for the soul purpose to ruine her. Its done so she will wait until she is married to have sex, and when she does have sex all she feels is pain. Also when they finish the procedure, they leave no room for her to urinate. Im not sure if you know this, but boys have a penius and girls have a vagina. That right their tells you HOW DIFFERENT it is. I know a lota guys who are circumsized and they have never expierienced pain during sex. Also when we circumsize a boy we have the best Drs in America, not just some random person who just hacks away. You can make your decision on your children, but dont you dare make me feel like Ive harmed my son.
actually, Circumcision was solely a religious ritual until Dr. John
Harvey Kellogg claimed, in the late 1800s, that masturbation was evil
& a cause of many illnesses, so circumcision was employed as a way
to destroy sexual pleasure. He also advocated that people who
masturbated too much should have their hands tied behind their backs
& acid should be applied to girls’ genitals, again simply to destroy
sexual pleasure.
so circ in america WAS designed to ruin pleasure, for men and women.
cutting little boys penises or girls clitorises and labia is in fact the same thing.
prepuce is prepuce my dear, whether m/f.
some (not all of course) FGM is only taking off a tiny part if the clioral hood, the same thing, but a smaller area of damage than circ on boys.
THEIR BODY, THEIR CHOICE!!
Dawne, typical female circumcision and male circumcision are the same, and they are both very sexually damaging. You just mentioned the worst form of female circumcision which is rare and which is worse than male circumcision. But most female circumcisions just cut off the clitorial hood which isn't any worse than male circumcision.
No medical organization in the world claims that circumcising baby boys does more good than harm. Not even the American Academy of Pediatrics which states that the benefits and harms of infant male circumcision are about equal. But according to many medical organizations infant male circumcision does more harm than good. So it's not justifiable to circumcise baby boys for health reasons.
Marilyn Milos had her 3 baby sons circumcised, and she is as caring as any mom could possibly be. After having her sons circumcised though, as a nurse when she first heard the screams of baby boys being circumcised as if they were being beaten to death, she realized that she had been lied to about circumcision. She then did further research into circumcision and started the non-profit organization NOCIRC. So if a parent lets their baby son be circumcised it's not because they are a bad parent, it's because they were lied to.
Now Marilyn Milos says that not protecting her precious babies from circumcision was the biggest mistake of her life.
I agree. We now know there is no medical reason for circumcision on boys. Cutting the sexual organs of any person without their consent (especially when the only reason is that 'everybody else is doing it') is mutilating their genitals. It is not safe and the negatives effects may not be noticed until decades later when the men suffer from erectile dysfunction. Parents all do the best they can with what they know at the time, but now that we know better let's do better and leave our boys the way nature intended - intact.
it totally is male genital mutilation
If one were to look closely, one would see that the study was just indicating how many baby boys are dying just by being born as boys. Check out this article on the study - http://is.gd/d1vPc
The risks and harms of infant male circumcision are many times worse than what the U.S. medical community wants people to think. At least nowadays parents can look on the internet or in many books to see for themselves just how dangerous, harmful, and unnecessary infant male circumcision really is. With doctors who tell parents only one sided biased information to support circumcision, that is horrible, and I think doctors like that should be charged with medical fraud.
I would like to read the study in its entirety.
I think all of those who commented need to also read about the risk of infection and such if you DON'T circ your son...and...not everything on the internet is the full story or even accurate for that matter.
Dear Anonymous,
No infant male child ever needs a circumcision. It would be extremely rare.
Doctors have made us believe for ages that "uncircumcised" (the correct word is "intact") boys are at a higher risk of infections, and this is just not true. The whole of Europe is intact, and they don´t have any of those problems.
Sometimes, the parents or doctors themselves are the ones causing the problems because the try to forcibly retract their boys´ foreskin. This should NEVER be done!!!... The foreskin retracts on its own, and does so at its own pace. Some boys are still non-retractable into their teens. And it´s normal. Forced retractions can cause tearing and irritation that then lead to infection... and the doctor will then say that the child "needs to be circumcised"... who is the money-earner here?... Take your guess.
Check some info here:
http://www.nocirc.org/publish/4pam.pdf
Besides, urinary tract infections, if they were to happen, won´t kill a boy because they are easily treated with antibiotics, just like similar infections in girls. But an extremely painful surgery, with risks of hemorrhage, shock and immediate infection, THAT can actually kill the boy... and it does so, with about 100-200 baby boys every year in the U.S.A.
Don´t you all find it "odd", that the very people who say things like "oh but my son HAD TO be cut because he got an infection" are the same people who always were pro-circumcision in the first place??... How come Europeans and Latin Americans and Chinese NEVER have to get cut, infections or no infections??
Anyway, I hope you´re not suggesting that 100-200 baby boys are a reasonable "sacrifice" in exchange of "men whom I think could maybe die in the future because they were sexually irresponsible and didn´t wear a condom". Cheers.
The risk of infection if you leave your son intact? Do you not realize that the majority of the modern world doesn't mutilate their sons? Are our sons penises different from theirs? Why do they not have this huge problem with infections in their penises that require mutilation a birth.
Because this is a MYTH.
I have four sons, not ONE has had an infection - and IF they have an infection, we'll treat the INFECTION, NOT mutilate his body!
Almost all if not all male mammals have a foreskin. Other mammals don't have infections or problems with their foreskin. If a vet circumcised a baby dog or a baby cat he likely would go to prision for animal cruelty. If other mammals don't have problems with their foreskins then humans shouldn't either. Usually the only way a human male will have a problem with his foreskin is if it's mistreated. Like if the foreskin is damaged by being forcefully retracted on a little boy, or from over washing. In places where they know how to take care of the foreskin like in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark only about 1 in 18,000 males ever needs to be circumcised their whole lives.
You're right. Read. Educate yourself first before you think you know all the facts. Circumsicion is abuse.
My son is 13 and I chose to NOT have him circumcised. As it is his body, not mine. He has never not once had any kind of infection.
I have 3 sons with whole penises, no infections here. Girls are actually way more prone to infection, perhaps we should be cutting them? And you're correct, I am 100% positive that these numbers are not accurate due to the fact that the cause of death is rarely reported correctly as directly related to unnecessary cosmetic genital mutilation, I mean circumcision. I'm positive that if these deaths were correctly reported the number would be higher.
Dawne, you make yourself look like an idiot when every other word you type is spelled wrong. Like someone who can't possibly know what she's writing about.
Incredible perspective with those numbers, really. Especially the fuss people make over SIDS when that could be for a variety of reasons. Complications due to circumcision are just that!
This study only examines deaths in the 1st 28 days of life. I know that many preemies are circumcised after that period but still before they have reached full gestation or become medically stable. I wonder how many deaths would be added if you incuded those. I also wonder about the large numbers of boys who get corrective surgery later in infancy or toddlerhood, under general anesthesia. How often are there fatal complications for those surgeries?
My 19 month old twin sons are intact and have never yet had any infections.
Just to let you know I have 2 sons 3years and 1 month. Both are circumcised and niether have ever had an infection. I really think its a persons choice. How many of these deaths occured because of the neglect parents put towards the healing if the circ?
Let me start off by saying im in my late 20s with all the equipment i was born with, and I have never had a penile infection nor a uti, as a matter of fact my entire urogenital tract is textbook perfect. I think you have missed the point "annonymous guy with kids" if you didnt cut them in the first place there would still not be an infection and, heres a shocker, there would be no aftercare of the incision. Think BEFORE you act. you cant pull your kids fingernails off and you cant cut them anywhere else, hell you cant even spank them in some states, cutting off the original equipment is abuse your children should be take from you we should brand your forehead with "I sexualy abused my child" and throw you in general population in any prison in America... I hope your kids torture you in your last days when you are as weak as they were in their infancy.
From anonymous "I really think it's a persons choice"
The only person's choice it should be is the person who owns the penis. I was circumcised when I was a baby, and I very much resent being circumcised because of all the sexual damage circumcision does. Since I have to live with it for my whole life my penis should be the way I want it to be, not just the way my parents want it to be, it goes that way for all males.
" I really think its a persons choice. "
Yes, I agree.
It is the choice of the PERSON who owns the PENIS. Not the choice of the parents. That body part DOES NOT belong to the parent, and no baby has died from NOT being circumcised. If I chose to surgically alter my child's ears simply because I don't think they should 'stick out', what would you call me? What's the difference? Why is altering their penis without their consent okay? It's a disgusting practice that should be BANNED for what it is...Male Genital Mutilation.
I hope and pray that the time comes when people look back on the practice of routine infant circumcision with disgust and sorrow. It needs to stop.
Hospital acquired MRSA is also a very real event as reported recently in NY. MRSA is not curable. The infected become carriers. Unnecessary circumcision opens up the possibility of MRSA.
Frank, MRSA is curable. It is one of the staph infections (bacteria) that is resistant to the typical antibiotics. It is successfully treated/cured with Vancomycin. It is a nasty bug and it is rampant in US hospitals There are some cases in highly susceptible (immunocompromised) patients where the strain is also resistant to Vanc. That portion of your statement is false and a little alarmist. Otherwise a valid point
My son was circumcised 30 years ago (lots of pressure from the pediatrician to do so.), but there have been no complications or remorse. It was just "THE THING" to do back then. Religious beliefs also influenced my husband and me. I was always haunted by the thought of smegma and STDs ........I had heard that STDs were more prevalent in uncircumcised boys.
You were told wrong about STD's being more prevalent in circumcised boys. The CDC states that the U.S. has the highest STD rate of any industrialized country in the world. Also the U.S. has the highest AIDS rate of any industrialized country in the world. But in most industrialized countries near 0 % of males are circumcised. If STD's really were more prevalent in circumcised boys then the U.S. wouldn't have the highest STD rate of any industrialized country in the world. Also smegma doesn't hurt anything and even has anti-virus and anti-bacterial properties. If a male doesn't rinse his smegma off regularly when he takes showers and lets the smegma build up that is gross but doesn't hurt anything.
I meant you were told wrong about STD's being more prevalent in UNCIRCUMCISED boys. And I meant if STD's really were more prevalent in UNCIRCUMCISED males then the U.S. wouldn't have the highest STD rate of any industrialized country in the world. I wish I could have just edited my original post.
You shouldn't be grossed out. Women get smegma in the folds of their labium as well. :) You wash, it goes away.
First, I think that all the name calling, and rude comments are uncalled for.
I definitely think that more education is necessary. I know as a young mom, I would have allowed my son(s) to be circumcised 'because dad was' and I didn't 'know' any different. Even though I had a friend who's son had been damaged by his circumcision. (They still don't know if he will be able to father children of his own or not.)
Luckily for my children, I had several girls first, so it wasn't an issue. By my 4th child I still didn't 'know' anything about circumsicion, but had an inkling, that if I did educate myself I wouldn't be able to allow it. Again I had a daughter, so it was a non issue. During my 5th pregnancy, I had a young daughter with a UTI, and I wouldn't allow her to be further traumatised by being catheterised just for a urine sample when the treatment would have been basically the same, no matter the actual test results. I decided that if I had that strong of an objection to a 'simple' catheterisation, there was no way that I would be able to let my baby be cut, for no good reason. I am so glad that I made the decision to leave my son intact.
This report is scary to me. Any loss of life from an unnecessary surgery, is horrible, and I'm so glad that this study has come to light, and someone is actually looking into this issue to get the word out to mainstream America.
Good article. It's kind of crazy how these facts aren't presented or even talked about for fear of offending people. My friend's parents had her brother circumcised as a baby and the doctors botched it. He ended up having to have half his penis amputated. He's never been counted as a stat but talk about some severe consequences for a "personal choice" that his parents made about his body.
The circumcision rate in the US is now at 33%. I'm glad more and more parents are doing the research in time to make informed decisions about their baby boys.
Please be kind and gentle. I'm sure there are a lot of very kind, loving parents who did not know the facts and chose to get their baby circ'd. My 2 boys were. The first wasn't so bad. The second boy's circ was a horrible experience for all of us. I will never do that again, if I'm blessed with another boy.
sweetheart you did what you beleived was right at the time. i dont ever blame the parents, i blame the medical establishment. i am glad you have learned from your mistake. we all make mistakes, it's what's so hard about being a parent. it's doctors who make money by perpetuating this hideous practice, and vulnerable, naive mothers are led to believe them.
If you all would focus more on educating people about the dangers of circumcision rather than screaming at parents who have already chosen this procedure, you would get more people's attention. Calling parents child abusers is too extreme and puts them on the defense. You will never win them over that way.
I agree. I think Mayhem is the only one who is "sceaming" though. I can understand why Mayhem is angry about circumcision because circumcision is such a horrible thing. But it's too bad that apparently Mayhem can't understand that parents who let their baby sons be circumcised are not evil, they are just misinformed. Yes parents should do thorough research on circumcision before their sons are born, but many parents do not know that.
That is amazing with the founder of NOCIRC, Marilyn Milos, saying that not protecting her precious babies from circumcision was the biggest mistake of her life.
My parents not protecting me from circumcision definetly was the biggest mistake my parents made with me, although my parents refuse to acknowledge how harmful of a mistake that was. At least nowadays more parents are researching circumcision and know better than to let their baby son be circumcised.
thank you for this article. I'm so glad more and more people are being made aware of how horrible and unnecessary this practice really is. I am so thankful someone told me to research before making my decision about my son. I would have been a new mom making a terrible, lasting mistake. I am a FIRM believer that it is a persons choice whether to circ or not...however this decision should NOT be up to the parents...it should be left up to the CHILD.
Great post! Lets continue to try and get the word out so new mommy's are aware, I'm sure if they knew that death could be one of the possible outcomes for their precious newborn, it wouldn't even be a question of 'do we' or 'don't we want to circumcise'. 33% Circumcision rate is definitely an improvement!
I don't understand why people would consider circumcision mutilation. I think for a large amount of the public circumcision is a religious belief.
"This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you." Genesis 17:10-11
I believe that the decision is in the hand of the parents. I do not believe that you or I have the right to judge them for their decisions or beliefs. Circumcision is NOT mutilation and NO ONE should ever be accused of mutilating their child for doing so. There are risks in having a baby boy circumcised and I realize that, but it is a very common procedure and there are a lot of great doctors who do them. I wonder how many of you, who are so against it, drank, smoked, did drugs, or other harmful things when you were pregnant? How many of you have smoked around a pregnant woman or baby? These things are all harmful as well, more so, if I am not mistaken.
In the end I say to each his own. Do your own research, talk to your doctor, make your own decision. Please do not disrespect any parent for circumcising or not circumcising their child. It is the choice of the parents and they will make the decision that is best for them.
I wonder how it isn't mutilation for males, yet the circumcising of females is considered mutilation. Doesn't seem right does it?
Male circumcision cuts off the exact same type of tissue that typical female circumcision cuts off. There are also claimed benefits of female circumcision to include it makes things easier to wash and it prevents diseases. Also in some parts of the world little girls are circumcised for religious or culture reasons. So just as strong of a case could be made for circumcising little girls as circumcising little boys. Circumcising little boys is every bit as much mutilation as circumcising little girls is mutilation.
No medical organization in the world claims that circumcising baby boys does more good than harm. It is not justifiable to circumcise baby boys for health reasons when no medical organization in the world claims circumcising baby boys does more good than harm. In my opinion the only way it would be justifiable to circumcise a baby boy is if it is medically necessary.
i couldnt agree with you more! you said it PERFECT!!!!
You REALLY need to read this article.
http://www.udonet.com/circumcision/christian.html
God called JEWS to be circumcised, under the LAW. We are no longer under the Law, being freed from it by Jesus' sacrifice for us. Circumcision of the flesh is nothing.
Circumcision, the way it is performed today, IS mutilation.
By the way, bringing up the 'drank, smoked or did drugs while pregnant' thing is ludicrous. It has NOTHING to do with the issue. And, as YOU state, 'These things are harmful AS WELL'. Nice of you to admit circ is harmful. Using an example of things that are harmful to the baby to justify another choice that is harmful to the babe, even with no complications, is absolutely ridiculous.
Please read that article and think really hard about why you want to continue to support such a barbaric ritual. And be glad your parents didn't use their supposed 'right' to choose for you, and have a few of your fingers cut off. Yes, it is the same thing. Both are cutting off useful, necessary body parts for dubious (aesthetic? pfft) reasons, without the consent of the child.
Circumcision is a HUMAN RIGHTS issue. Every human has the right to choose for themselves, and if grown men choose to be circed for religious reasons, aesthetic reasons, or whatever reasons, more power to him. He has the RIGHT to make his own choice. Period.
i was circumcised as and again as a child, why docs botched it... mutilation by definition is the removal or scaring of an object or body... further more i am immune to most local anesthetics when i had to have it redone i felt every single incision i hold the scars both physical and mental from both the original surgery and corrective surgery, to give you and example of the pain take an exacto-knife cut the skin from one of your fingers now amplify that by 20...
40-60% of infant circumcisions in the US are done with no anesthetic, death is death, pain is pain mutilation is mutilation... Circumcision IS MUTILATION! wither it is performed on a girl or boy it still MUTILATION!
Circumcision is an OLD TESTAMENT command, period. Paul, in several of his letters, specifically states that actual, physical circumcision is NOT a sign of the New Covenant (Jesus). See, for example, the Book of Romans. Instead, BAPTISM Is the sign of the joining the Christian Covenant, and Jesus' sacrifice is all that is ever needed - no child need ever suffer.
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