Parents face so many difficult decisions when it comes to having a child: decisions about nursing, sleep patterns, discipline, teaching methods and, in the case of boys, whether or not to circumcise. In addition to being the most common surgery for males in the U.S., circumcision has been practiced in various cultures for centuries. Yet when it comes to the health and best interest of your newborn, is circumcision the way to go?
Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
To balance these multiple health advantages of circumcision there are the chances, found in any surgery, of complications of the procedure itself. When properly performed by a trained operator using local anesthesia (including newborn infants) circumcision is quick, safe and virtually painless. Newborns are metabolically best suited for the operation, they heal very quickly, and the surgery is most easily done at this age, with the lowest complication rate. Complications in infants are generally slight with an incidence of about 0.2-0.4 %. At older ages the procedure takes longer, healing is slower and the complication rate, with generally mild problems, is about 10 times higher at 2-4%.
To summarize, circumcision is an important preventive health procedure with multiple health advantages throughout life, varying from life-saving in the case of HIV and genital cancers, to avoidance of local problems. The benefit to risk ratio varies from 6:1 to 12:1 depending upon how one lumps or splits the individual benefits. Circumcision deniers have used anecdotes, testimonials, myths, and media and Internet sound bites in attempting to deny, disparage or ignore the rapidly accumulating scientific evidence published in peer review medical journals. As the data showing proof of circumcision advantages have become overwhelming and undeniable, the actions of the anti-circumcision groups have become less credible and more desperate.
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