Ear piercing for 6 to 9 months old daughter

[blueblackdye]

I'd like to have my daughter's ears pierced between 6 and 9 months of age. Could anyone recommend where to go in Cental London ?

[laptopwieldingharpy]

Oooooh red glitter!
Dd got some red glitter tatooes in a party bag.
2weeks of scrubing and oiling in the shower before we could get rid of it.....now that is abuse!

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Ok. I think piercing a baby's ears is child abuse.

[LynetteScavo]

Why would you want to scrub off red glitter tattoo? They sound rather fetching!

I used to let DS1 have a fake tattoo every time he went for a haircut (the children's hairdresser sold them). I told them when it had disappeared it meant it was time to go back to the hairdressers. (They took about 6 weeks to come of with no scrubbing) One of my better parenting lies.

[mathanxiety]

'Can we drop the 'other cultures' defence?
other cultures stone women, chop hands off for theft, don't allow women to drive, insist they cover their entire bodies and faces when out have female circumcison and more.

I like to think that we are not part of cultures who do things like that.'


And we are not. To suggest the OP is doing anything comparable here is to seriously diminish the horrors people in other parts of the world face.

We allow parents to pierce their babies' ears, because we recognise that it does no harm and that it only hurts for a very short while, and that parents are allowed to have their child look the way they prefer, bear a name that they choose, eat what they prefer to feed them, dress the way they like to dress them, set what they think is an appropriate bedtime, etc.

[KobayashiMaru]

you might recognise that, clearly a lot don't agree with you. Its not to say its the same, but its a spectrum. Some people think male circumcision is totally fine, after all it is legal to do and we "are allowed to have our children look the way we prefer"...but others think it barbaric mutilation, unnecessary and dangerous.
It doesn't diminish anything, it merely places it on the bottom end of a spectrum, but the basic point is the same: leave a babies small innocent body alone,and if you want to pierce someones flesh with metal for the sake of fashion, do it to yourself and not your baby.

[mathanxiety]

It's more than a little precious to call it barbaric or mutilation, and the slippery slope idea where FGM is at the nadir trivialises real barbarity and real danger and real mutilation.

[missbopeep]

Matha

We allow parents to pierce their babies' ears, because we recognise that it does no harm and that it only hurts for a very short while, and that parents are allowed to have their child look the way they prefer, bear a name that they choose, eat what they prefer to feed them, dress the way they like to dress them, set what they think is an appropriate bedtime, etc.

You miss the point . And you are talking bollocks.

Ear piercing is permanent . How can you possibly compare it with choosing clothes for a child?

All the points you make above do not a) inflict physical pain b) risk injury and infection, c) can be reversed once the child is old enough- including name change.

I am sure that the societies where they stone women for adultery would argue 'oh it only hurts for a little while'.

are you mad? seriously?

[eekazombie]

My first memory is of having my ears pierced around the age of one. Given that the rest of my memories don't start until school age, it's probably obvious how traumatic it was!

All I remember is screaming and a man offering me smarties. I had studs where the back was coiled to prevent them coming out. They had to be cut out a few years later so the earrings could be changed and I was terrified of anyone going near my ears.

Weirdly my job now is all about ears.

Don't do it, OP. Had my ears pierced another couple of times as an adult and the pain was nothing.

[KobayashiMaru]

you don't think unnecessary male circumcision is mutilation? Up to you, I do.

[Absy]

Seriously though, I agree with mathanxiety.

Yes, with ear piercing there are risks, which, in some cases can lead to horrible consequences (e.g. infections), but this is in the minority of cases and is a result of poor after care, not from the piercing itself. I couldn't find anything (quick google search) on deaths from ear piercings, but here's some complications from piercings in general from the American Academy of Family Physicians journal.

However, for FGM WHO states that there are the following complications:

• The procedure has no health benefits for girls and women.
  
• Procedures can cause
  
• severe bleeding and problems urinating, and
  
• later cysts,
  
• infections,
  
• infertility as well as
  
• complications in childbirth
  
• increased risk of newborn deaths.
  

I can imagine that the proportion of deaths, and serious, life-threatening complications from FGM vs. ear piercing is MUCH higher. Saying they're in any way equivalent is just wrong, IMO.

[badtasteyoni]

Why does your DD want her ears pierced at such a young age?

[KobayashiMaru]

You'd have a point, if anyone had ever said they were in any way the same. However they didn't, so you don't.

[Fairydogmother]

I had my ears pierced at 13 and suffered such horrendous side effects that i'd never allow my children of any age to have them done.

think about trying to bathe ears that all the skin has come off leaving crusty scabs of psorasis and that should conjure up the right image. it was agony..

[LilyMarlene]

My Auntie pierced mine when I was just over a year old. I can't remember it, but apparenlty I screamed and wriggled so much that it was very hard to get the gun in the right place. It is not immediately noticeable, but the holes are wonky. I rarely wear earrings.
I have South American friends who have toddler girls with pierced ears and I accept it is culturally normal for them, however, personally, I think it looks tacky. More importantly, there's the pain your daughter will have to go through.

[missbopeep]

Absy I wasn't responding to the point about FGM. I was responding to the lines I put in my post- about choosing clothes, names and food. Of course FGM is much worse. But there is a difference too- FGM is more for sociological reasons- ear piercing is pure vanity on behalf of the parent. I am not for one minute defending FGM- of course not- but it' s not about how a child looks, is it?

Ear piercing is about how your baby looks ( and you think they look better) with pierced ears.

This is subjective.

I cannot see how anyone can bear to inflict pain and risk of injury on a baby to satisfy their own idea of what constitutes attractiveness.

[VisualiseAHorse]

We allow parents to pierce their babies' ears, because we recognise that it does no harm and that it only hurts for a very short while, and that parents are allowed to have their child look the way they prefer, bear a name that they choose, eat what they prefer to feed them, dress the way they like to dress them, set what they think is an appropriate bedtime, etc.

So I can tattoo my baby then? Seeing as it only hurts for a short while and does no harm?

Obviously, things like FGM are far more serious (in terms of permanant damage etc), but in my eyes, ear piercing for young children is on the same 'spectrum' if you will.

[lizzywig]

I've skipped to the end of the thread to add my bit.

I was at children's a&e yesterday and there was a toddler in the waiting room with pierced ears, no idea how it had happened but part of her earing had become embedded in her ear lobe. The nurse was putting a cream on to numb the pain in the waiting room (good old overcrowded nhs) & she was screaming "no mummy please don't let her hurt me, don't let her touch my ears".

The whole thing was heartbreaking. Regardless of the odds of this happening, why risk it?!

[VelvetSpoon]

If the right earrings are used (tiny hoops NOT studs, studs are wrong, they're harder to keep clean and uncomfortable to sleep in), there is no risk of them becoming embedded, and if they are kept clean, little risk of infection.

[VisualiseAHorse]

Little risk = some risk right? So why risk it at all?

There is NOTHING positive to be gained from piercing a baby's ears, except they 'look' prettier. To some people.

[missbopeep]

Irrespective of the fact you'd be inflicting pain and a piercing on your child Velvet- are you actually a parent who has brought up a baby?

The reason I ask is that when both my DCs were 6-9 months old i was exhausted from lack of sleep ( neither slept through the night until 6 months at least and wanting feeding all the time) they had colic and one had eczema. The thought of having to fiddle around with ear lobes at the same time would have sent me over the edge.

And hoops can get pulled and rip the lobes. Many schools don't allow them AT ALL, so when your child is 5 what happens then- the holes close up maybe?

[clam]

Why? Just why?

[mathanxiety]

Lizziwig, same thing happened to my DD3. She screamed when she saw the blood and wouldn't let me touch her ear even to wash off the gore to let me see what the problem was before calling the doctor. When we got to the point of having the stud removed she was almost hysterical.

She was not a toddler when her ears were pierced, not by a long shot. Some children are panicky about blood.

Missbopeep, I honestly do not see how anyone could get so worked up about ear piercing of babies that she brings the matter of women being stoned to death into the debate. Is there an equivalent of Godwin's Law I can invoke here?

[mathanxiety]

Oh and DD3's first question for the doctor once the dust settled was when could she get her ear re-pierced..

[olgaga]

Whatever your cultural "norm" this is the UK in 2013 - surely it is right to view body piercing as a personal decision?

Let your children decide for themselves, when they are old enough to have an opinion, whether they want this done or not.

[nailak]

what do you count as old enough to have an opinion? 3? 16?