The Circumcision Decision

by BIRTH WITHOUT FEAR on NOVEMBER 27, 2011

I can not thank Lauren, with The Whole Network, enough for doing this very informative and respectful post on circumcision for our BWF readers. It truly is a phenomenal article on such a heated topic. ~Mrs. BWF

During my first pregnancy, I was overwhelmed with joy when I found out that there was a little boy in my belly. Like many 'mamas-to-be', I instantly fell in love and spent my days (and nights) dreaming about him. As the months passed by, I began to plan for his arrival: washing and hanging all of his tiny clothes, picking out the softest blankets I could find, figuring out what breast pump would be best. I wanted to be prepared for every little detail. When I began to make plans for the birth itself, I thought about what would happen on the day of his birth, and circumcision crossed my mind.

At the time, I did not think there was even a choice about circumcision. Every male I knew- my husband, dad, brothers, friends - were all circumcised. The thought of a penis with a foreskin wasn't appealing to me (even though I never saw one in real life), and I had always heard of women saying it was "dirty" or "gross". I also advocated the benefits of circumcision (even though I never truly looked at the research articles.)

My heart sank in my chest, because I didn't want to put my new found love through any pain whatsoever. However, after talking to various family members and my OB/GYN, it seemed that circumcision was the best option for my son and his future. "It's cleaner" and "he'll have fewer problems" were the most common responses. I had yet to hear a single response that was in favor of not circumcising.

I didn't think about it much after that, until about 2 months before his due date. By that time, my love for him had grown immensely, and the thought of any painful procedure made my head spin. So one day, I decided to sit down and search on Google to see what came up about circumcision. I was very surprised when the vast majority of the information was against it! My curiosity was perked, and I found myself on YouTube, watching a video of the procedure. After all, my baby boy would have to go through it- so I should see it, right?

My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw the video. I couldn't stop crying.

From that day forward, I poured everything I could into researching this topic. I wanted to know the truth. Using various sites and forums, I started to network with as many people as I could. To my surprise, I found that there were thousands of parents who had healthy boys who were not circumcised. This intrigued me, because I had always been told that foreskins would cause many problems in boys/men. I needed to know more.

As I dug further into the topic, I found out that the majority of the males in the world are not circumcised. In fact, the United States is the only country to perform this procedure routinely for non-religious purposes. Another interesting fact is there is not a single medical organization in the world who recommends circumcision- not even the American Academy of Pediatrics!

So why was I under the impression that circumcision was best? Why do parents continue to choose it? Why do some doctors advise us to do so? I decided to create a list of the apparent benefits and researched them one by one. I had heard various reasons, such as better hygiene, less chance for UTIs, less chance for HIV/STDs, needing to look like father/brother(s), less chance of penile cancer/HPV, better to be done as an infant and needing to fit in with his peers. Here's what I found.