Advice needed re: Baby Boys Private Bits

[looneytune]

Hi there

I look after a baby boy (I'm a childminder) who is currently 8 months old and since he started with me, I noticed his private bits are different to anything I've seen before.

After seeking advice, I decided not to mention it as I presumed the health visitor etc. would have said something. Anyway, the mum has told me this morning that something was mentioned at the 8 months check but she's not really been given much information. She has now asked me if I could help research what this could mean.

Basically, his sack hasn't dropped and the person who checked him at 8 months so they can't find his balls so they need to keep an eye on this. Their answer to when they should have dropped is 'every baby is different'. My ds was born with it dropped so I don't know what the norm is.

She's been told that they will keep an eye and the worst case would be needing an operation but the mum really doesn't understand what it's all about as they haven't really explained anything properly.

Does anyone have any advice? Do you know what this could be? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks :)

sound like \link{http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/factsheets/families/F040036/index.html\undescended testicles}

HTH

'sounds' even

the testicle sacs are formed inside the abdomen and descend into the scrotum usually before the baby is born. If it doesnt this usually happend naturally within the first few months of life.
If his testicles have not decended from his abdomen then his mother should be pushing for a referral to the hospital. Ideally ifis is both testicles I am sure they should be operated on before the age of two to avoid long term fertitlity problems.\link{http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/factsheets/families/F040036/index.html\this seems to have the main point on it}
HTH

scarry!!! snap ggirl, happiness is a mumsnetter goggling for you!!!

LOL chapsmum weird!

chapsmum is absolutely right. my ds had his operation at 9 months. The op lasted 1 hour and he woke up without being in too much pain. we stayed in hospital for two nights. they should definetely push for a referral to the hospital. Operations must be done before they reach the age of two.

DS had this operation (orchidoplexy I think the proper term for it was??) yesterday - he is just turned two. It was picked up at around a year old, but here they leave it until 18m to see if they will descend naturally. However, he did have a scan and hospital appointments to determine exactly where they were between 12m and 18m. If they haven't appeared by 18m then they schedule the operation as they are very unlikely to drop naturally beyond this point.

He only had one side done - our consultant only does one at a time in case of infection (and losing both), although the person who actually did the op said he would be happy to have done both. However, this would have involved an overnight stay. As it was, we went in at 8am, and were out by midday.

They used to wait until boys were around 5yo before operating, but this was found to have an adverse effect on fertility, so now they do it earlier as a rule.

Has she seen the GP about it? I'd be pushing for a hospital referral to get the process started now.

Thanks so much for the advice, I have passed the info on to the mum and she is very grateful!

:)