One in every 500 boys will experience an acute complication due to circumcision. Is this a risk parents should take?
“I didn’t really think that much about not circumcising my son,” a doctor friend admitted to me as we hiked through Lithia Park last weekend. “Didn’t research it … I just trusted my gut. It didn’t seem necessary, so we didn’t have it done.”
When her son was born in a hospital in northern California she and her husband, who was circumcised as an infant, chose to leave his penis the way nature intended.
They weren’t willing to risk that their son might have complications from circumcision.
Besides, not operating on his penis right after birth just seemed like the right thing to do.
“That’s not very doctorly of you,” I joked. “Trusting your mommy gut.”
“I know, I know,” she laughed. “But remember it wasn’t so much part of the culture where he was born. Folks just weren’t doing it there, and they were discouraging parents from having it done.”
Circumcision rates vary widely from state to state
Boys in the Pacific Northwest are least likely to be circumcised. A friend whose husband was born in rural Eastern Oregon confided that he’s not circumcised though he was born at a time when the majority of boys in the United States were.
Rugged pioneer stock, the mamas out in Eastern Oregon aren’t afraid to do things differently.
On the flip side, boys in the southern states are much more likely to be circumcised.
I heard from a reader last week that pediatricians in her home state of Alabama always react to her son’s intact penis with perplexity and sometimes even with horror.
Alabama doctors so rarely see an uncut penis that they aren’t sure what to make of it.
“You’d better get that fixed!” one doctor told her recently, suggesting she had been a negligent parent because she had not circumcised her son.
Most American doctors have little experience with intact babies
Doctors in America are usually circumcised or married to men who are circumcised.
American doctors have little experience with normal, intact, healthy penises.
They also are often ill informed about the risks of the procedure. They themselves may have experienced complications from circumcision that they are not even aware of.
“What did they do to you?” a Scandinavian woman asked an American man while they were making love.
She was upset that part of his penis had been amputated.
Taking off the foreskin deprives the penis of both length and width.
The foreskin protects the glans of the penis, keeping it moist and sensitive.
A circumcised penis has a head that has hardened (“keratinized” is the medical word for this).
Losing sensitivity is one of the many complications from circumcision men experience. This Scandinavian woman couldn’t believe it when her American lover told her that circumcision was considered normal in the United States.
“I am against it,” a Jewish doctor who performs circumcision almost daily confided in me off the record. “I think it is totally unnecessary but I don’t think it’s dangerous or harmful.”
A post on Facebook reads: Please pray for my grandson. He’s in the hospital. This newborn was circumcised and started bleeding from his penis. Acute complications, including hemorrhage and even death, happen in 1 of every 500 boys who are circumcised, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Though considered a routine operation, complications from circumcision are more common than many parents realize.
So it’s no wonder that Maggie Rhode, a mom from Memphis, Tennessee, thought she was bringing her 3-month-old son in for a safe operation in August.
A botched operation
Infant male circumcision can cause extreme pain and serious complications. Photo via Pixabay.
The circumcision at Christ Community Health Center, the doctors told her, would take only 20 minutes.
Instead it lasted three hours.
The doctors horribly botched the circumcision. Then they handed Maggie Rhode her son, who was screaming in pain, without telling her that anything had gone wrong.
“After I went home and I discovered that my son’s penis was not there, I immediately froze, like, oh my God,” Rhode, who is speaking publicly about what happened to Baby Ashton, told My Fox Memphis.
Baby Ashton went to the doctor with healthy genitalia. Now he has a partial penis.
He urinates through a hole in his penis and screams in agony, his mom said.
Complications from circumcision much more common than parents realize
One in 500 boys will experience acute complications from circumcision, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and that’s probably a conservative estimate.
One in 500.
How many unnecessary acute complications is too many?
Will it ever be time to say enough is enough?
When do we stop listening to the AAP and start trusting our mommy gut?
When do we decide as a culture that taking a sharp knife to a boy’s genitals within the first few days of his life without his consent and for no good medical reason is unacceptable?
Norway has been trying for years to introduce legislation to outlaw non-medical circumcision.
Zimbabwe is reporting that the mass circumcision campaigns supposedly to curb HIV transmission (three scientifically faulty studies have shown that circumcision reduces the spread of HIV) are actually spreading HIV because circumcised men feel they’ve been “vaccinated” and now refuse to wear condoms.
An infant in Sacramento, California, Brayden Tyler Frazier, died after complications from a circumcision in March 2013.
The year before another infant died after contracting herpes from a Rabbi who sucked on his penis as part of a religious rite.
My friend’s son’s penis has adhesions due to a botched circumcision
The penile adhesions irritate him and cause ongoing bleeding. Five years old, this little boy cries whenever he gets an erection.
I found out a close family member also suffered a circumcision complication that has embarrassed him his entire life.
“[C]omplications of circumcision do represent a significant percentage of cases seen by pediatric urologists,” reports this article in the Scientific World Journal. “Often they require surgical correction that results in a significant cost to the health care system.”
There are at least 18 complications from circumcision, according to Stanford Medical School.
Circumcision complications include:
- Bleeding
- Infection
- Adhesions and skin bridges
- Meatal stenosis (a narrowing of the urethral opening that can make it difficult for a boy to urinate)
- Amputation of the head of the penis
- Death
I met a pregnant woman recently who knows she is having a boy.
This pregnant mom didn’t do her research with her oldest son so she circumcised him.
Then she felt deep regret over the choice she and her husband made.
But even so, she circumcised her second son. She felt it was the wrong choice but did it anyway, because she didn’t want him to look different from his brother.
Her third son is also circumcised!
And now she doesn’t want to circumcise this baby boy but, again, she feels she has no choice.
Really? When you know better, can’t you do better? Instead of continuing to do something you know is wrong?
I really hope she changes her mind. Her son will thank her when he’s older.
Find out more about circumcision in the chapter, “Foreskins for Sale,” in my book, Your Baby, Your Way.
Articles related to complications from circumcision:
One Mom’s Regret
Keep America’s Baby Boys Intact
How Much Baby Tylenol is Safe?
Published: November 13, 2013
Updated: November 28, 2022
I was neonatally circumcised in NJ hospital by the doctor who delivered me as “routine”. My parents were provided with no information. It completely injured me. Traumatic corrective meatotomy surgery at age 5 for meatal stenosis and other complications due to loss of my protective foreskin. I feel violated and mutilated. I am a circumcised father of an intact son. I was horrified that the NJ hospital solicited circumcision in 2013. I am fully aware that physicians in every other country in this world discourage parents from circumcising their infants because it is painful, traumatic, invasive, and injurious. Basically, it removes something that should NOT be removed. The foreskin protects the glans throughout life and provides pleasure to males and their future partners. I am fully aware that it is unlawful and unethical for physicians to operate on healthy children. Physicians who circumcise healthy children should lose their licenses to practice medicine, serve a lengthy prison sentence, and be registered as sex offenders.
Thanks, Jennifer, for writing about this controversial topic. The complication rate is 100% as all males will lose the most sensitive part of the penis, which leads to a change in sexual function. Data collected a few years ago, but not published, showed that all the adult circumcised males in the study sample exhibited some degree of bowing, meatal narrowing, and a decrease in size of the penis likely from altered blood supply, altered lymphatic drainage and loss of nerves. Circumcision of infants is torture and mutilation. Our society continues to ignore the short and long-term effects of a brutal “custom”. Those who try to justify circumcision on the grounds that it has health benefits are completely misguided. The only thing it prevents is normal sexual function.
Brilliantly written piece, & powerful, appreciated commentary.
Thanks so much Craig for your honesty & bravery. I hope your story will inspire others to think twice before making this “choice” for their sons. I have zero regrets about my intactivism!
Thanks for the additional info Michelle – it’s amazing how many let this happen without all the facts!
I won’t stop sharing this information as long as there’s air in these lungs, or every child is allowed the chance to remain whole – whichever is first.
Thank you for writing about this topic. A lot of circumcised males don’t know what they are missing. When we are circumcised at birth, we grow up with thinking our body is the body we are born with. It is often too painful to even think that someone removed a part of our body that others enjoy. I lived in denial until age 38 when I became a father and then researched this topic. By looking at my normal intact son I can see what I lost, and it fills me with a range of emotions. I hope more and more women stick up for our helpless baby boys and put an end to this harmful and outdated U.S. hospital birthing ritual as soon as possible. Boys like girls deserve a gentle beginning, the gift of their whole body, and all the sensitivity and feeling that nature intended.
Belated thanx and in which I’m glad to see. Now, I’m going to be passing this via email, blogs, facebook, and etc.
Jennifer, thank you for continuing to inform the public about the needlessness and danger of this relic of 19th century clueless medicine. Started in the U.S. to “prevent masturbation,” circumcision continues despite the fact that we now know how valuable the foreskin is to sexual pleasure and to protection of the glans penis. Botched circumcisions are much more common than parents are led to believe. As a trial lawyer I represent the victims every day. I was recently contacted by the parent of a baby boy who almost bled to death after a neonatal circumcision. And this is not the first time I have heard of such an event. Many men have hair on the penile shaft upon erection; this is a sure sign that they suffered removal of much of their shaft skin. They suffer in silence and ignorance while the doctors continue to cut without any medical justification. Babies die and their deaths are ascribed to something other than the circumcision that caused them. Bravo to you for keeping this important issue in the public eye. Here’s hoping that doctors put down their knives soon!
Craig Adams, you absolutely nailed it on the head with your claim that RIC is against the law. It is socially sanctioned assault and child abuse. Here is why:
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CATPA)
• “Child Abuse is a Criminal Offense that involves the physical, emotional, or sexual mistreatment of or Infliction of Non-Accidental injury to a child committed by a parent or another party if responsible for the child’s welfare or not, either purposefully, or due to neglect.“
• “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker or any other person, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”
Forced Circumcision is Child Abuse
• Assault – Non-accidental injury, deliberate wound, amputation of a functional part of the reproductive system, bodily harm
• No established benefit – lack of an existing problem
• Forces a religious identity/branding – exploitation
• Mutilation – Disfigures, removes sexual functions, leaves a scar, alters normal aesthetics, harm
• Risk infection, bleeding and even death
• Adults have indicated physical and emotional harm from circumcision
• Doctors are sworn to an oath “first do no harm” – they break their oath
• 14th Amendment of the US Constitution: Gender Discrimination
/ Violation of the Constitutional Right of Equal Protection
• Forced Circumcision is Child Assault and Abuse – A crime tolerated and ignored
The way I see it, the only logical thing to end the criminal offense to for the law to make an announcement, putting a halt to it. Anyway who violates from that time on should, as you said, be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
“My friend’s son’s penis has adhesions due to a botched circumcision. They irritate him and cause ongoing bleeding. Five years old, he cries when he gets an erection.”
I’m sorry but this is wrong. I am a pediatric urologist. I dont do regular/routine circumcisions, but I do repair them when they go wrong. When things go wrong, 90% of the time it is cosmetic (i.e. parents arent happy that there is still a lot of foreskin covering the penis) and 10% of the time it is a true medical complication (bleeding, ulceration, meatal stenosis, etc).
I have 3 boys and I didnt circumcise any of them, simply because I dont feel it is medically necessary. But I also think the commenters here are out of line calling doctors “sex offenders” who perform them. That is ridiculous.
Adhesions can occur with ANY CIRCUMCISION, even circumcisions that are 100% perfect with no errors. To state that adhesions are proof of a medical mistake is absurd. Doing a circumcision is just like any other cut. When you accidentally cut your hand on something, the edges of the wound naturally begin to heal together, even if you dont do anything to enhance the process. The same thing occurs in circumcision. The edge of the foreskin at the base of the penis will gradually re-attach to the glans of the penis over time, that is part of the body’s natural healing process. To prevent adhesions from happening, parents need to pull back the foreskin on a regular basis to keep the foreskin from sticking to the tip.
Well, I’m a mother of 2 boys and I submitted them to a circumcision in the hospital as advised by most medical professionals. But reading on this made me realize that we all have different beliefs or maybe culture as well. It would be sad to know that your son will be one of those boys who experienced complications after circumcision and that this issue should be given to the expert lawyers in sacramento ca so that they can help give answers on this.
And 1 in 11,000 baby boys die as a result of those complications.