Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Aug
6
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“You Aren’t Going To Circumcise Him?…It Gets Very Dirty Under There.”
“You aren’t going to circumcise him? Well, make sure you retract his foreskin to clean under it. It gets very dirty under there.” – pediatrician to a mother at the baby’s first exam after birth.
There are 42 comments to this post.
Dear doctor,
Regarding my decision to cut my son or not, it is really none of your business so it is really is unethical for you to give your opinion. And and speaking of your opinion, please read something about foreskins and the proper treatment of them. They are NOT dirty and it will retract on its own when it’s ready.
Sincerely,
Looking for a new pediatrician
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Girl hygiene = warm water
Boys hygiene = Genital mutilation or at LEAST painful ripping of the skin to clean the smegless bloody glans underneath.
WTF? Sorry Dr, take a basic care of normal anatomy class and I’ll be at my new pedi. Buh BYE now!
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When I was being released from the hospital the nurse was giving me instructions on cleaning his belly button, then telling me when to set up an appointment for circumcision. I told her circumcision wasn’t in my son’s future and she said “Better pull it back every diaper change, then, or else he’ll smell like a garbage can.”
When I told my OB/his pedi (same doc) he said “that nurse is an idiot”.
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Mama Mirage had this to say,
Aug 6, 2010 @ 4:34 pm (Quote)
Ugh! So stupid! How many baby and young boys are injured from premature retraction of the foreskin because of idiots like this?! And how often are the statistics on babies and children with foreskin problems a RESULT of this very thing? Dude seriously, it’s ATTACHED for a REASON… Could it BE that in the grand design of things it’s attached, as in solid, there is no flap full of accumulating yuck, until the child is old enough to take care of it HIMSELF for this very reason? When he’s old enough to take care of it himself, then it starts needing taken care of. Fancy that logic, doc? It doesn’t need cleaned until the boy is getting regular full erections because it should not ever be retracted by hand until it’s naturally already doing it. I wish this was common knowlege – many little fellows would be spared pain and serious complications if more people only knew that not only is circumcision not necessary except in extreme cases, circumcision has life threatening risks, care of an intact part is way easier than care of a cut one, and in fact the less you mess with it until they are old enough to really need it, the better!
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Tora Spigner Reply:
November 17th, 2011 at 3:05 am (Quote)
Thank you. So I should take a q-tip to my daughter’s vagina too? Stupid doctors.
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Brisa had this to say,
Aug 6, 2010 @ 4:55 pm (Quote)
My pediatrician said this too and I’d never heard of this being done and let him do it to my first son who screamed, of course. When I got home, I went straight to the computer to research it and found out how unnecessary it was. We switched pediatricians and my next son (due in 5 weeks) will NOT have to go through that. Why can’t docs just leave nature the way God intended it to be?!?!
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Mama&Ellie Reply:
August 10th, 2010 at 3:32 pm (Quote)
My question is…why are doctors looking at/touching babies’ genitals anyway? I think that seems disturbing.
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Wow. We did want to go through with circumcision, but couldn’t because of our son being born with hypospadia (they needed the foreskin for surgical use). No one ever mentioned retracting it and despite never being told not to either, I could have smacked a pediatrician the moment she did it to my son while saying “You need to make sure you do this.” It wasn’t his regular pediatrician, I pushed her hand away as soon as possible and said I was leaving. She looked very offended but my son’s regular doctor agreed that she should not have done that. Even now that surgery has been done and he looks like a circumsized little boy down there, the doctor we now go to was happy when I asked her “Please don’t tug on anything down there.”
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You know what? I think I’ll have my children’s fingernails removed at birth. Fingernails are a nasty hiding place for all sorts of germs and other icky things. Not scrubbing under fingernails is a major source of contamination and food-borne illnesses. It’ll be much easier for them to keep their hands clean if they have no fingernails. Besides, I lost a fingernail in an accident and I want to make sure that my kids hands look like me. It would be awkward to explain why they were born with fingernails and I’m missing one. All the other parents are getting their kids’ fingernails snipped and I want to be sure that they don’t get made fun of in Kindergarten when they’re doing fingerpaints.
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Karli Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 6:48 pm (Quote)
This is hilarious! It would be even funnier if it weren’t true.
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Honeybee Reply:
August 8th, 2010 at 11:14 am (Quote)
Fantastic. 
Don’t forget about toenails, you know how sandal weather gets.
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Heather P Reply:
August 9th, 2010 at 10:44 am (Quote)
Oh yes. And I forgot to add that my childrens’ pediatrician told me that you have to peel back the fingernails to clean underneath them. It doesn’t matter that its firmly attached to the finger. You have to force it back to scrub under there. I’d rather not have to do that.
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Oh please God, not a 2nd circumcision debate in 1 week. Please everyone just refer to the post earlier in the week.
By the way – a midwife @ the hospital we delivered (use that word loosely, it ended up a unc/s) told us not to touch our son’s penis & when he is old enough he will start playing with it and will pull the skin back on his own (without instruction) and if we interfere with him/it we will cause him pain & problems.
Hope the OP was well informed & didn’t listen to this (excuse the pun) w@nker.
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Cmat Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 5:53 am (Quote)
I don’t see any of this really as a debate. I think even for the parents that make the decision to circumsize they’re aware that intact care isn’t what this nurse/doctor said. It seems like most people just think its dumb that they had no clue yet they have some type of medical degree.
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Nebit Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 8:34 pm (Quote)
Unfortunately, many parents DO think that what this doctor said is correct. Its often a reason why they decide to circumcise in the first place. Because they’ve heard an intact penis is dirty and difficult to care for, and that they’ll have to retract it to clean at every diaper change, and then they’ll have to keep on top of their child to clean under there himself when he bathes. Its all, of course, rubbish, but its doctors and misinformation like this that cause most parents to circumcise in the first place.
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Cmat Reply:
August 7th, 2010 at 9:03 pm (Quote)
Glad I didn’t bother to do anything with it. My husband did ask at one point “Are we supposed to do anything to it?” I said “Well they didn’t specify anything so I’m just going to leave it alone.” I also never did squat to the umbilical cord either except to be gentle to it.
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You guys are being totally irrational. All the doctor did was recommend good hygiene. If you don’t clean, then guess what? It DOES get dirty
Jesus H. Not everything is a horrible insult, you know.
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You guys are being totally irrational. All the doctor did was recommend good hygiene. If you don’t clean, then guess what? It DOES get dirtyJesus H. Not everything is a horrible insult, you know.
Okay one of my dumbass coworkers wrote this, not me. Incidentally, the coworker is male.
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Holy cow, what is wrong with this world.
I am actually in search of a new pediatrician because Tuesday at his 4 month check up he went to retract his foreskins to “check for adhesions”. I screamed (it was an automatic reaction) and then flipped on them.
Why do American doctors not know a thing about the human penis? Is a how to on mutilation the only thing that’s covered in med school?
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Make sure you retract and wash out under his eyelids while you are at it.
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Tenielle Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 11:52 pm (Quote)
There are people who don’t? 
How do they keep their eyes clean?
On the toenail analogy, here’s a link (but watch out for the “ewwww” inducing pictures)
http://www.drmomma.org/2010/08/routine-toe-removal-has-health-benefits.html
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Marilyn Milos, RN had this to say,
Aug 22, 2010 @ 8:43 am (Quote)
Thank you to those of you who know so much about the structures, functions, development, and care of the normal penis. You have learned more than most doctors learned in medical school and now you’re the ones who we are depending upon to give advice–to healthcare professionals, expectant parents, and the unknowing public.
As many of you may know, I was lied to by my obstetrician, who told me circumcision didn’t hurt, only took a moment, and would protect my sons from a myriad of ills. Imagine my surprise when, years later as a nursing student, I witnessed the pain and trauma inflicted upon a newborn by circumcision. As I recognized that my own sons had been subjected to this pain and torture, and as I witnessed this baby screaming and writhing in pain, I began to cry. The doctor looked at me and said, “There is no medical reason for doing this.” After the devastation of that experience (and it wasn’t even happening to me), I began to research the issue and the more I read the worse it got.
But, today you already know the things that it took years for me to learn. How else could I apologize to my own sons but to dedicate my life to bringing an end to the travesty they experienced because I didn’t know enough to protect them?
Now you are carrying the torch, and I just want to wholeheartedly thank you!
Thank you for caring enough to protect your own sons, thank you for caring enough to learn what’s important in caring for them, and thank you for caring enough to educate others!
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Serene Reply:
September 1st, 2010 at 7:39 am (Quote)
Marilyn, thankyou for being a Nurse that I could happily aspire to be. I am a baby RN, and still learning. But its nurses like you that acknowledge mistakes, and learn from them, and pass information on to others not because it is “what is done” but because it is FACT, that drew me to this profession in the first place.
Thankyou for caring enough about your patients to see your sons reflected in them. Thankyou for realising that your patients are people too.
Thankyou for being what a nurse is supposed to be.
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Dear Doctor:
Learn something.
Love,
Everyone
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