Hypospadias and Southampton general hospital

[Twoboysdelight]

Hi
I'm hoping someone can help, my son has been born with mild hypospadias and we've just been referred to mr h steinbrecher's clinic in southampton. I just wondered if anyone had any experience of this consultant and or any experience of hypospadias?
I'm dreading the thought of my son potentially having surgery, but also hate the idea that if he didn't have it now, he would, as an adult, wish we had made the decision for him, and got it done.
Any experiences people have had with positive outcomes would be so appreciated.
Thank you.

Congratulations on your new baby.
I don't know the surgeon but Southampton Hospital has a good reputation.
The first appointment will be a review to confirm that hypospadias is definately present.
A hypospadias repair will be needed to allow normal sexual function as an adult and "normal" urination. The urination issue is obviously not relevent until he is older.
Surgery tends to be delayed for several years after birth.
In the mean time, just do not have your son circumcised, as the foreskin is needed during the repair.

Hi Hedwig
Thank you for the reply. I wasn't planning on getting my son circumcised, but good to know anyway. Any idea if its quite a straightforward opp and recovery? I just cannot bare the idea of putting my perfectly healthy little boy under a general anesthetic.

Hello, my son is 2 and a half and had his repair done in May. It was much more straight forward than I thought it would be! He had the mildest form of defect and the surgeon used the magpi technique to repair and found that there was enough skin left to form a foreskin (they had been planning to circumcise).
He was potty trained at 18 months and wee would shoot straight backwards and hit him in the balls so we could see hypospadius in action. This also made his repair easier to recover from as he was in control of weeing and wasn't sitting in soiled nappies.
On the day pre-op was all run of the mill and because he's so little he was anxiety free. We were at Brighton hospital where he got to ride a battery powered quad bike to surgery. He was gassed and THEN cannulated rather than have the stress of trying to get a needle in beforehand.
After surgery, he had been given an epidural so was numbed from the waist down and slept for 3 solid hours (such a surprise and DH and I got to enjoy lunch beside his bed while sighing over how peaceful he looked!!). I was expecting a frankenwilly but there was no visible stitching or bruising or even any dressing. When he woke he was pain free and not bothered by the cannula. He was keen to be up and moving straight away on numb legs which was a challenge, and then he tried to wee and yelped. It took ten tries to have a wee over about three hours and in the end he exploded and yelped the whole way through!
That evening he kept refusing a wee saying he didn't need it, whilst jogging on the spot and literally tinkling wee all over the house bless him!
When we eventually got a look he just had a line of white stitches on the underside of his willy which were pretty much protected from the back by his balls and the front seemed fine. Within hours he was bouncing on beds and jumping off sofas.
There seemed to be no pain from movement just urinating.
After three seemingly pain free days he woke in the night crying and it was a little but inflamed. We went back to using the cream from the hospital and this only lasted 36 hrs - on and off sore so continued Calpol etc

Since then he's been absolutely fine - his aim is different and that took him a bit of getting used to.

Good luck and I hope it's as much of a non-event as our experience was!!!

Keeks, thank you so much for your reply, it's so reassuring to hear that your son is fine. How long did the operation take?
And I thought they needed a catheta after the op or is that not necessary?

So pleased to hear your son is absolutely fine.

On our first consultation at 1yr old we were told he would need a super pubic catheter (the kind that comes out of your stomach) and were understandably freaked by that but that they would reconstruct rather than circumcise, at the 2nd consultation at 2 yrs old this changed to a normal catheter which we could come home with and he WOULD be circumcised then on examination a few weeks before his op they thought he would probably not need a catheter but wouldn't know for sure until operating and they would try to save his forkeskin (as we requested that). In the end it took over two hours, and the nurse came up part way through to say no sign of catheters and that he had a good amount of foreskin - so it was very uncertain until the event!