Male babies under the knife, or circumcision...

This could be a controversial topic, lol. But...

There was search on the site for information about circumcision. If you've had male babies born here, I could use some input. While I've given birth to a male baby, hubby is English and this was not an issue up for discussion. Am I correct in assuming that it's not the norm here? If it's a small percentage that have it done, is it done in the hospital after the birth or some other process?  

I know there are pro's and con's to the whole issue. It's not cut and dried. But the majority in the US has become a minority in the UK it seems. This might be strange to some. I'd like to be able to explain it if I can. All comments welcomed.

Circumscision is not common anywhere but in the US. It is common amongst people of the jewish religion and maybe some other religions though. It became common in the US in the 50's I think as a prudish way to cut down on masturbation. After that reason was no longer PC, the reason became to prevent disease. Numerous studies since then have shown no good reason to automatically do it. Some small percentage of males can have problems when the penis is engorged by having the foreskin being too small, thereby causing a lot of pain when the penis is erect.

In the US circumscision is still common, but not as common as it once was. These days maybe 25% of new born males are not circumscised. It has become ingrained in the psyche of modern American medicine. It was done to me. I did not do it to my son born in Sweden 8 months ago. Nor would I have done it had he been born in the US.

You can do a google search and come up with a lot of info on this topic. Including some video of the actual procedure. it looks liek the baby goes through a lot of pain. And anesthetics are not given due to the young age of the child. There is also a lot of blood. I personally think the practice is barbaric.

I hope I'm not breaking any rules here, but there is a talk forum like this one for American expats in Sweden. There was a thread not too long ago on it about this very thing, and it is packed with a lot of good information. 140 posts in fact.

http://www.amerikanska.com/talkforum/thread.html?forum=2&thread=462


This should take you to it. It is in a forum called extra strength, so you might have to sign in to see it. It is a free forum and everybody is welcome on it, in fact there are quite a few people from the UK on it as well.

It might peak your interest leah, just because it is a very similar idea to what you are doing here

There are no rules about giving out links to other sites. I did have a quick look at the site because I noticed it in your email address, is it your site? It's well done, though I don't have spare time to look into it further. A couple of the moderators tried to look, had trouble signing up.

I wasn't concerned with debate issues, I've read those before. I was only interested in the arrangements necessary to have it done here, if a parent wanted it done which could be the case if someone were living here temporarily due to work. I can always ask my health visitor, she'll be around next week.

Nah, not my site. I am just a talker there, like here!

I did read something about this years ago, probably in the Guardian.   I can't remember if it was an American couple, but it is virtually impossible to have an elective circumcision here.  And I mean impossible.  I couldn't find it by searching the Guardian's archives, but there is an article about some hospitals just beginning to perform elective circumcisions for the Muslim community, so this is probably the way you'd have to go if you really felt strongly about it.