Personally, I would not circ my son *just* to reduce the risk of HIV transmission.  I'd rather teach him about being safe and using protection.

He was our first and we had him circumcised because it just seemed the thing to do.  But afterwards, we felt terrible about it.  If i could go back I wouldn't do it.

I'm glad we had a girl the second time around so we didn't need to make the decision about whether or not they should "match."

We had my son circumcised, and it was a horrible experience. Skip ahead to 19 months later and a new pediatrician, and we find out that the foreskin has completely grown back. All the pain, physical and emotional, was a waste. I'm now wondering if the pediatrician did such a terrible job with my son's circumcision, if he botched the anesthesia as well. My son was in obvious excruciating pain after the procedure.

We have the option of going to a "specialist" to remove the "extra foreskin," but after my first experience, cosmetic appearance isn't reason enough to go through the ordeal all over again. Hopefully I'm as fortunate as the poster above me to have number two be girl, so I don't have to agonize whether to snip or not.

I'm glad to hear the rates are falling.  

Every parent of a son has to make this decision for their child and I'm glad that more folks are doing a bit research before they make the choice.   We opted not to circcumcise our son -- I'm not so concerned what another parent decides, as long as they don't do it without a bit of thought.

I only have a daughter, but my husband is intact, so circumcision was never even an option if we had a son. We both firmly believe that all children are born with a right to keep their bodies whole (barring any true medical needs), and won't even let our daughter get her ears pierced until she's at least in double digits.

As for the HIV argument, there have been studies that show that there are cells present in the foreskin called Langerhans that actually fight off HIV infection.

We chose NOT to circumcize our son. My husband is circumcized and initially thought his son should look just like him, but he quickly changed his mind when he looked at the whole picture.... From the beginning I felt very strongly that we should not and I am so glad that my husband now feels the same way and our son has all his bits and pieces!

My aunt and uncle were the first to visit and they asked if we did (no, I didn't mind that they asked...). When I said no, my uncle's comment was, "Good, it's so barberic!" I was glad to have their support considering my brother thought we were crazy!

On a side note, personally, I actually think the circumcized penis' are the funny looking ones.... what with the Darth Vader helmut......

I'm going through the agonizing decision making process right now (for the second time). I'm leaning against, but my husband opts for circumscision. Not for the sake of appearances (although both he and our older son are circumscised) but for health reasons.

He has personally known only 7 men who were not circumscised as babies. Of those, 5 of the men opted for circumscision (for themselves) as adults, because of numerous infections and the tendancy to get scabs. None of them report any negative effects of the procedure (except that, you know, any surgery hurts a bit). All of these guys say that they will opt to circumsise any future sons. They also say that they wish they had undergone the surgery years earlier.

I've seen videos of the procedure and cried. But when I  do research  the information is either inconclusive or seems extremely biased against circumscision for emotional reasons more than medical reasons.

IF we choose not to circ. son #2 , I really don't think it will be a huge deal that he doesn't match dad and big brother.

sorry for typos

Weewee - the problem with all these men having recurring "infections" is that some people are under the impression that you need to pull back the foreskin in babies and scrub under it, which is absolutely the WRONG way to do it. It's basically the same thing as lifting up your eyelids and scrubbing with soap - a surefire way of causing irritation and problems. If you just leave it alone, wash on the outside like you would a finger, and let nature take its course as far as it becoming retractable, it's unlikely that there will be problems. There's a great forum on Mothering.com that has tons of information on myths and misconceptions about the intact penis.

We snipped at my husband's insistance.  I had no strong feelings and felt that if hubby was cir'ed and enjoyed his penis as it was, my little guy would likely have no issues either.  I am glad we did.   My son is less than a year old.  The procedure bothered him not at all, either during or after.

I will say this.  Aesthetically, I do not like an 'intact' penis; it looks like my dog's.  And oral sex would be right out.  Bleh.

we snipped. both of our families have history of senility and alzheimers in the menfolk. i didnt like the idea of infections late on in life as sometimes those who care for the elderly dont always take the time to clean the area properly....also noone in my family or the hubs family is intact so we werent sure that we could accurately teach the son to clean everything... but we had a mohl (sp?) do it in the house instead of the docs doing it in the hospital. the son had a little wine and was held by myself and dad, the mohl explained everthing he was doing and in about 15 minutes it was done with only one whimper from the babe all in all not a terrible experience and we will do it again this way if have another son.

i do think it is interesting that folks who wont circ will pierce the ears of their infant daughters, im not knocking it i just think its interesting

I had tons of problems in puberty resulting from my circumciser cutting way too much. At first I thought painful erections were just normal growing pains! Imagine my surprise when I found out I just had too much penis, not enough skin.

So of course there was no way over my dead body any son of mine would be circumcised. Our son is no 16 months and has never had an infection. He still is not retractible, which is nice, because he's still in diapers and we wouldn't want any stuff to get under there.

I have this theory, people on both sides of this issue get real crazy about this.

It's like watching a WWF match.

The amount of misinformation and irrational and illogical thinking about this topic is amazing!

For instance:  Infections . . . The genital infections men get are the exact infections women get . . . the same bacteria and yeasts and they are treated with the exact same medications that are used to treat women and the prognosis for successful treatment are equal or better for men than women.  Have you ever heard of a woman who "had to be circumcised" because of genital infections?  Have you even heard of a woman who could not be cured?  Is that because of a difference in men and women or because genital amputation is not socially acceptable for women and is acceptable for men?  The only difference is that women contract these infections at a far higher rate than men.  Aren't we circumcising the wrong sex?

And for the nursing home . . . If your mother was in a nursing home and suffered a genital infection due to poor care, what would you be doing, accepting that poor care is just a part of nursing home care or going for a lawyer and removing her from that nursing home?

Very few people ever end up in a nursing home and the vast majority are only there for a short time.  The vast majority of those who are in nursing homes never have a genital infection whether they are male or female.  It would take thousands of infant circumcisions to prevent a single one of these instances.  More babies would die from the circumcision procedure than would have to be circumcised as an elderly adult.

Childhood UTI's are caused from parental neglect and ignorance.

Neglect and ignorance is caused from religious convictions that prevent a person from accuiring new knowledge.

Fredr, UTIs have nothing to do with neglect or ignorance.  In most cases they have to do with ureters (the tubes that lead from the kidneys to the bladder) that have not fully developed or are structurally defective.  Very young children are more susceptible to UTIs simply because they don't have well developed immune systems.  The best defense against UTIs is breastfeeding as it builds the immune system.  That's directly from The AAP just in case you were wondering.

Everytime I see the picture with this posting, I just cringe.....

O'HARE Says,

''UTIs have nothing to do with neglect or ignorance. ''

I said childhood UTI's, big difference. The I in UTI refers to infections by microbes.

''In most cases they have to do with ureters (the tubes that lead from the kidneys to the bladder) that have not fully developed or are structurally defective.''

Again not an infection you are talking about but underdeveloped or structuraly defective, which are not infections.

''  Very young children are more susceptible to UTIs simply because they don't have well developed immune systems. ''

So parents should be aware to keep them clean and not rip the prepuce down to clean it. And not use caustic soaps, and not use the same washcloth they use on themselves. And keep feceses away from the ureter, the biggest cause of childhood UTI's.

''The best defense against UTIs is breastfeeding as it builds the immune system.''

That is very true so parents should avoid causing traumatic shocks to their infants that could disrupt the first mothers milk nursing period that contains concentrations of immune system building enzymes and proteins. I've heard that some mothers loose their milk from the trauma of watching a circumcision.

 ''That's directly from The AAP just in case you were wondering''

So you're saying the AAP's words are as good as gold? Like they can't make mistakes or omitions?

My 88 yo boss developed dementia and had to be instiutionalized. I took good care of him in the mornings. The night caregivers there were all female and he rejected help from them so he went to bed with messy depends. I had to wash the dryed poop from his circumcised penis. He developed a UTI and couldn't comunicate his needs and became very very confussed.

Circumcision doesn't prevent UTI's. Knowledge and wisdom prevents UTI's. Women tell eachother to urinate after sex to avoid UTI's. I'm circumcised and had three adult UTI's, one I know was from pool water, one was sexual, and one was drinking contaminated water.

Why is it that women prefer the scarred penis rather than the intact? It makes as mush sence as a man saying he prefers to look at a double mastectomy.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I've been hiding my head in the sand for several years now when it comes to certain parenting issues. My happy little parenting Bubble Of Goodness. I think a lot had to do with being immersed in a Waldorf school