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Circumcision Myths: Part I

© Donna Lauritzen

This is the first part of a two-part series of articles dealing with circumcision.

When one decides that she is going to practice attachment parenting, she looks at every baby issue through a different lens. Every issue related to baby's care is scrutinized, and nothing is taken for granted. When I was 20 weeks pregnant, circumcision became one of these issues for me.

Before I'd I became pregnant, circumcision was not an issue I'd thought about. I vaguely remember hearing some of the debate, and I leaned to the side of not circumcising, but it did not matter much to me. Even when I became pregnant I didn't give it a great deal of thought; due to a "feeling" my husband had, I was convinced that we were having a girl.

Then, at 20 weeks, we had a Level II ultrasound. The technician told us and the perinatologist confirmed it: our sweet infant is a boy! This news opened the door to many parenting questions for me. One of those questions was, "Do we circumcise our son?"

I started doing some research on the issue, and through this article, I would like to take you on our journey towards our ultimate decision on this issue. As I do when I want to learn about anything nowadays, I started internet search, where I found more than enough information for us to make our decision. I found that all of the information I'd been given in support of circumcision simply is not true. There are many myths and half-truths associated with circumcision. I will address them one by one:

• Uncircumcised boys have a higher risk for urinary tract infection.

  Studies have shown that, although uncircumcised boys have a greater chance to develop a UTI, their chance is still only ¾ to 1%. In other words, it's not likely that an infant boy, circumcised or uncircumcised, will develop a UTI; therefore, to my husband and I (as well as to the American Academy of Pediatrics!), this potential "benefit" was not a good enough reason for us to choose to circumcise our son.

• Uncircumcised men are at greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

  There have been studies conducted which appear to prove this point; however, many groups (including the AAP and the AMA) acknowledge that the original studies were slightly flawed, and that the REAL factor for determining risk for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV is lifestyle of the individual, which the original studies did not take into consideration. "Doctors Opposing Circumcision" points out that the US has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the industrialized world, and we are the only country to perform routine circumcisions. While they make no attempt to correlate circumcision and HIV/AIDS, this statistic most definitely refutes the argument that non-circumcised men are at higher risk to contract the disease.