Circumcision but no Circumcision Party

[thefruitwhisperer]

DP is turkish but he and his family were all born in the UK and dont practise Muslim traditions apart from Eid. My DP is the only one who does Ramadan and thats only every couple of years when he can be bothered. They celebrate xmas and easter etc.

Ive agreed to have our month old baby circumcised as thats what DP wants and I agree that there are plus points, but Im an atheist so I would like all religious connotations taken out of the situation. I think thats a fair compromise (esp as its going to be quite hard for me, Im really scared) and I would like it to be a quiet decision between DP and I. His family will know the baby has been cut, why do we need to celebrate it in a party that is more for the sake of getting presents than it is anything else. I dont want the gifts.

DP has admitted that the only reason his family circumcise their babies is for social reasons, everyone has it done, everyone has a party, everyone gets money as gifts. Ive compromised on the actual circumcism, and I really really dont want to have a party. I will feel as though Ive sold my babies foreskin. Add to that, if theres no religious reason for it, why are we even doing it - and the only answer I can see is cultural/social/peer pressure reasons. I just dont see any reason to celebrate this pointless operation (obviously only pointless in this instance, I can understand where it is necessary medically or in religious circumstances) other than to show off that we have conformed and then get some money. Children who have their appendixes out dont have parties. I mean, I could equally argue that we have the baby christened catholic, my family all are and dont go to church.

AIBU to have the operation but draw the line at a party? I think DPs family are all going to be disappointed with me. And his grandparents apparently disowned his uncle for the same thing.

Statalover. I suspect that circumcision helps prevent HIV in countries where fresh water for washing may not be as available as it is here. I would be more interested to know whether those statistics would be the same in developed countries where people tend to wash/shower/bath every day.

It's because the inside of the foreskin is different than the skin on the rest of the penis. Among other distinctions, the tissue there contains many more cells that are susceptible to HIV infection. The foreskin is also susceptible to tears and other infections, which can also increase a man?s risk of HIV.

Bunbaker - When a man has unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman, whether or not either or both took a shower that morning is completely irrelevant to the transmission of the virus.

Just like when a sick person sneezes next to you, it matters not one bit if both of you took showers that day or not. Or when a child with conjunctivitis touches your baby's face, it wouldn't matter that both are washed every day. That is just not how viral infections work.

The reason HIV is transmitted more easily within a foreskin is that it is a permeable membrane on the inside and is delicate, so as it goes up a lady's bits, she can transmit HIV through the membrane. If you are circumcised , essentially you lose that permeable membrane and also the glans itself is less permeable than before ( but i'm happy to report, doesnt become "like a piece of old shoe leather" as some posters have stated!).

jojosmaman - I was watching a US medical video of a routine medical procedure. Of course they have to strap the baby boy down to immobilise him, they gave him pain relief but he was still screaming, it took 6 minutes to complete, it was a raw open wound in the end put back into a nappy.

It was bloody awful TBH.

So circumcision allows you to have unprotected sex with someone with HIV and cut your chances of getting HIV by about 50%? Is that right?

Better to wear a condom. It cuts the transmission rate by much, much more, and there's no chance of the penis becoming infected/damaged/deformed.

Better not to have sex at all then there's zero probability of transmission.

Thankfully far more sensible people are deciding these things.

Africa and the UK are very different, and the decision will be very different. In parts of Africa HIV is rife and condoms are largely shunned.

Anyway, very few people in the UK are deciding anything based on medical evidence.

Or is it just a big coincidence that it's mainly people who buy into all this religious/cultural stuff who have their kids genitals altered?

CoteDAur where has anyone else supported your crack pot ideas?

As i said before the report was conducted in 1989 and is very outdated.

Also the trial was very suspect - how do you test the men equially also didnt they give cercumsised men condoms and the non circumsised men no condoms.

If it was a real health issue then the UK NHS Service would also advise all new born baby boys to have this done.

msbethel
yes, i wasn't arguing that HIV prevention should be an important factor in the UK when deciding whether to circumcise. But people (such as MrSpoc) were denying that there was any effect - and there certainly is!

MrSpoc

I don't know Cote's particular paper but there have been many RCTs that have demonstrated the decreased transmission of HIV among circumcised men.

The effect was SO strong that one of the studies had to be prematurely ended because it was felt that it was unethical to continue and not offer circumcision to men in the uncircumcised arm.

But of course, you know best

Well i do no that the UK is not pushing it to the UK male population so therefore feel that the other trials and reports undertken for the 3rd world countries were just done for an agenda.

Now can you explain why the UK is not pushing it?

Do I really have to spell it out?

In the UK, HIV prevalence is 0.2%, partly from migrants from high prevalence areas, with much transmission within UK due to intravenous drug use and prevalence pushed up by excellent ARV treatment.

In Swaziland, 26% of the population is infected, most sexually transmitted.

Circumcising boys in the UK would have a negligible impact on overall deaths from HIV. It doesn't make the science wrong.

@CoteDAzur.....circumcision does NOT protect against aids. it reduces risk of catching HIV by 55 percent on average. that still leaves a significant risk of catching HIV if you have unprotected sex with an infected partner.

55% reduction sounds quite significant to me, I have to say. Yes, wearing a condom every time is probably the best way to avoid it, but that doesn't rule out the fact that circumcision can be very useful. OTOH, circumcision didn't stop the AIDS epidemic initially spreading in the US where circumcision is normal practice, but then again, who knows how much worse the epidemic might have been without widespread circumcision?

Wondering about the significant reduction in sensation point made earlier - if this was really the case I think circumcision would never be done.

DS got the chop as a newborn for reasons that were quite spurious medically, but in the US, at the time, not to be circumcised would have been something that marked a boy out from his peers. So it was done mainly for social reasons, and 'just because' - no, not really good reasons. However, the OB/GYN did a really neat job, as they got a lot of practice doing the op back then (almost 18 years ago) and he had no complications, which is the norm for the US. He was returned to me with gauze wrapped around his penis, with vaseline, sleeping soundly, and no nappy, just a small soft piece of cloth and a little hospital shirt, and wrapped in a blanket. I was shown how to change the gauze and apply vaseline (to the new gauze) and wrap him every time I changed him. He had fully recovered within a week - no need for any more gauze, etc., no redness, nothing. He showed no signs of discomfort whatsoever during that time.

Doing it to an older boy leads to more problems, and more involvement of other people with an intimate area at an age when children are conscious of personal privacy which can lead to some hang ups. Yes, the baby needs to be strapped down - babies are always strapped down for any procedure. Toddlers who stuff objects into their noses are strapped down for examination (neighbour's little boy, googly eye up nose), and for x-rays (DD4, fell down stairs twice one day aged 18 months). The reason to strap them down is to keep them from flailing around and making treatment or examination impossible or dangerous.

Not to say I would make the same decision again if faced with it, but the operation itself is not necessarily a horrific ordeal and the consequences are not entirely negative.

Oh and wrt the party - have a get-together if it's important for the family, but specify no gifts? Or ask for donations in the DS's name to a children's charity?

CoteDAzur - My DS was circumcised aged 3 because his father insisted on it when it turned out he had the same issues physically with his foreskin. He had just gone through the operation as an adult, and quite firmly said that he wouldn't put our DS through the same experience, because apparently the uncontrollable erections (in the mornings especially) were incredibly painful.

We could have waited until he was 16, which is apparently when you'll know whether or not this problem is permanent and requires surgery or not, or we could operate straight away to deal with the problem immediately. The consultant felt it better to do it straight away, because of his history, and his father sealed the decision.

So yes, apparently it's not nice at all to have a circumcision, but it's a bit easier when you are younger. We've just been through the same with his dad then him having tonsilectomies too, and recovery time for son was faster than father again. Would never put a child through surgery unless necessary though, my son screaming in pain post-op is imprinted on my memory forever.

there is evidence that sexual intercourse with an uncircumcised male is more pleasurable for women as the foreskin serves a function in keeping lubrication levels up. vaginal dryness can result from circumcision as the lack of skin can create a scrapping motion.

sweetkitty- Very odd, afaik it normally takes around 30 seconds (I'm not talking medical procedures btw, I just know of two or three friends who son's have been done for religious reasons) plus another minute or so for a gauze to be added and the boy to be dressed. In most cases the babies were handed to their mothers for B/F within a few minutes of the procedure and there were certainly no strapping down. From what I understand the father holds the little one in place (in the same way you would if they were having an injection or similar).

As i've said previously, I'm not in favour of non-medical C/C but what I am uncomfortable with is the you-tube style scaremongering that goes on and I really don't understand why people watch these videos.

".circumcision does NOT protect against aids. it reduces risk of catching HIV by 55 percent on average"

That is what I have said, along with World Health Organization. Circumcision provides significant protection against HIV infection. Nobody said that it makes you invincible

You need to wake up and admit that you don't know better than WHO.

"there is evidence that sexual intercourse with an uncircumcised male is more pleasurable for women as the foreskin serves a function in keeping lubrication levels up"

That is utter rubbish. What evidence? From which scientific experiments? Where were these studies published. Please provide the links.

I am guessing here that you have never been with a circumcised man. If you have and there were lubrication problems, I assure you, there must have been a problem in what he was doing with his penis, and not with the penis itself.