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Circumcision is the removal of some or all of the foreskin (prepuce) from the penis. The frenulum may also be removed at the same time, in a procedure called frenectomy. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin circum (meaning "around") and caedere (meaning "to cut"). The practice of circumcision predates recorded human history, with depictions found in stone-age cave drawings and Egyptian tombs.•• while other physicians believe there are less invasive treatments for these conditions that can be tried first.•• The procedures of circumcision
Cultures and religions For information on circumcision in the Bible, see circumcision in the Bible. Some cultures circumcise their males as a matter of tradition, either shortly after birth, in childhood or around puberty, when it may be (or form part of) a rite of passage. The practice is most notable among Jews and Muslims, and is more prevalent in the United States than in other Western nations. Judaism Circumcision is fundamental to Judaism. It is an essential component of Jewish practice and is a commandment obligatory under Jewish law (Halakha) for all Jewish males.• It is usually performed in a ceremony called a Brit milah (or Bris milah, colloquially simply bris) (Hebrew for "Covenant of circumcision"). A mohel performs the ceremony on the eighth day after birth unless health reasons force a delay. According to the Torah (Genesis, chapter 17 verses 9-14), God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself, his offspring and his slaves as a sign of an everlasting covenant. According to Halakha, failure to follow the commandment carries the penalty of karet, or being cut off from the community by God. Brit milah is so important that should the eighth day fall on Shabbat, actions that would normally be forbidden because of the sanctity of the day are permitted in order to fulfill the requirement to circumcise. The expressly ritual element of circumcision in Judaism, as distinguished from its non-ritual requirement in Islam, is shown by the requirement that a child who either is born aposthetic (without a foreskin) or who has been circumcised without the ritual must nevertheless undergo a Brit Milah in which a drop of blood (hatafat-dam, הטפת דם) is drawn from the penis at the point where the foreskin would have been or was attached. Less commonly practised, and at times the subject of controversy, is metzitzah b'peh, or oral suction. This is a procedure where after removing the foreskin, the mohel will suck out the blood from the wound to clean it,• although today this is usually done with a glass tube. Christianity Catholic, Protestant, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christianity do not prescribe circumcision. The first Church Council in Jerusalem decided that circumcision was not a requirement (Acts 15), and St. Paul warned gentile Christians against adopting the practice as a means of grace. However, individual Christians and Christian traditions may have different customs. For example, circumcision is customary among members of the Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and Eritrean Orthodox churches in their home countries. On 1 January, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary and Anglican and Lutheran churches an assortment of newer feast days such as the Holy Name of Jesus:these have largely replaced the liturgical feast of the Circumcision of Christ, which was formerly celebrated on that day and is still celebrated under that name by some Traditional Catholics. Islam The origin of the requirement of circumcision in Islam is a matter of religious and scholarly debate. It is mentioned in some parts of the Hadith, but not in the Qur'an. Fiqh scholars have different opinions about circumcision in Shariah, depending on which Hadith are accepted and how they are interpreted. According to some it is a recommended practice (Sunnah). According to others, it is obligatory.• Moreover, there are some who interpret verses in the Qur'an to imply that the requirement of circumcision is based on the covenant with Abraham.• The timing of Muslim circumcision varies. Turkish, Balkan, rural Egyptians and Central and South Asian Muslims typically circumcise boys between the ages of six and eleven and in traditional society the event may be viewed communally as a joyous occasion and celebrated with sweets and feasting, though in the middle class it is more usually a matter of routine in infancy and largely unremarked upon. In Turkey this feast is called "Sünnet Düğünü" and considered a very important celebration in man's life as a passage to a man from childhood. In Pakistan, educated and practical muslims perform circumscision of new born at an infant age accompanied with Aqiqa (birth celebration on the 7th day of birth with the sacfice of goat on behalf of a new-born child). But circumcision may be performed at all ages from newborn period to adulthood the medical profession has encouraged the medicalising of circumcision and its performance within the first week after birth as a means of reducing complications, though "circumcision is performed by barbers, medical technicians, quacks and doctors including paediatric surgeons and as yet there is no consensus for the best age and method." In Iran, Dr. Paula Drew states that “circumcision, which formerly celebrated the onset of manhood, has for many years now been more customarily performed at the age of 5 or 6 for children born at home, and at two days old for those born in a medical setting.…By puberty, all Muslim Iranian boys must be circumcised if they are to participate fully in religious activities.”• Kamyar et al describe it as an "obligatory custom" and note that it is not necessary for the circumciser to be a Muslim. Hinduism There is no specific reference to male circumcision in the Hindu holy books, and Hindus in India generally do not practise circumcision. Sikhism "Circumcision holds no relevance to a Sikh." All rituals which do not hold relevance are strictly forbidden.• For Sikhs, "acceptance of Nature's beautiful body is an important component of the Sikh value system."• Secular tradition Routine circumcision practices in South Korea are largely the result of American cultural and military influence following the Korean War. The origin of the practice in the Philippines is uncertain according to one newspaper article, although it speculatively attributes it to the influence of western colonizers.• This is supported by the seventeenth century text of Antonio de Morga's History of the Philippine Islands, which equally speculatively attributes circumcision to Islamic influence.• In West Africa infant circumcision may have had tribal significance as a rite of passage or otherwise in the past; today in some non-Muslim Nigerian societies it is medicalised and is simply a cultural norm. Non-Western initiatory traditions Circumcision can be part of an initiation rite in some African, Pacific Islander, and certain isolated Australian aboriginal traditions, such as in Arnhem Land,• where the practice was introduced by Makassan traders from Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago.• Circumcision ceremonies among certain Australian aboriginal societies are noted for their painful nature, including subincision for some aboriginal peoples in the Western Desert.• In the Pacific, ritual circumcision is nearly universal in the Melanesian islands of Fiji and Vanuatu;• participation in the traditional land diving on Pentecost Island is reserved for those who have been circumcised.• Circumcision is also commonly practised in the Polynesian islands of Samoa, Tonga, Niue, and Tikopia. In Samoa, it is accompanied by a celebration. Among some West African animist groups, such as the Dogon and Dowayo, it is taken to represent a removal of "feminine" aspects of the male, turning boys into fully masculine males.• Although in many West African traditional societies circumcision has become medicalised and is simply performed in infancy without ado or any particular conscious cultural significance, among the Urhobo people of southern Nigeria it is symbolic of a boy entering into manhood. The ritual expression, Omo te Oshare ("the boy is now man"), constitutes a rite of passage from one age set to another.• For Nilotic peoples, such as the Nandi, circumcision is a rite of passage observed collectively by a number of boys every few years, and boys circumcised at the same time are taken to be members of a single age set. Ethical issues Circumcising infants as a public health measure is controversial. Circumcision advocates assert that circumcision is a significant public health measure, preventing infections, and slowing down the spread of AIDS.• The genital integrity movement, however, asserts that infant circumcision is a human rights violation and a sexual assault, and that the practice of circumcising infants or children should be discouraged or banned. Consent Debate often focuses on what limits, if any, should be placed on a caregiver's ability to have a child circumcised. The procedure is irreversible, the immediate medical value is disputed and the result may not be in accordance with the child's wishes when he is an adult. Some believe that male circumcision is ethically identical to female genital cutting and question the perceived inconsistency of not prohibiting the former in the same manner as the latter.••• Emotional consequences An article discussed the extent to which circumcision may cause emotional harm to males.• Some organizations have been founded as support groups for circumcised men who are upset with their status.• Several studies suggest that circumcised infants do not forget the pain during circumcision easily, as a correlation between circumcision with ineffective anaesthesia and intensity of pain response during vaccination months later has been noted.• Legality The mainstream medical organizations do not consider circumcision to be a legal issue as long as the decision for circumcision was made by the legal guardians, and that they have given their informed consent. A controversial law passed in Sweden in 2001 restricts neo-natal circumcisions to be performed by persons certified by the National Board of Health, requires that a medical doctor or an anesthesia nurse accompany them, and requires that anaesthetic be applied prior to the procedure. Most Jewish mohels have been so certified.• Muslims and Jews in Sweden objected to the law,• and the World Jewish Congress noted that it was “the first legal restriction on Jewish religious practice in Europe since the Nazi era.”• Medical aspects The direct medical benefits of neonatal circumcision are still under debate, with various studies reaching different opinions. The studies have been conducted using cost-benefit analyses. The complication morbidity is compared to the potential gain in expected longevity, and the medical costs of circumcision are compared to the expected reduction in lifetime health costs. In the words of the BMA, “There is significant disagreement about whether circumcision is overall a beneficial, neutral or harmful procedure. At present, the medical literature on the health, including sexual health, implications of circumcision is contradictory, and often subject to claims of bias in research.” Biases notwithstanding, some studies decided that circumcision has a net benefit, some decided that it has a net decrement, and others decided that the benefits and risks balance each other out and that other factors must be taken into consideration. The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians all suggest that anasthesia be used if performing circumcision. Risks of circumcision
HIV The most recent data indicate that circumcision is correlated with reduced risks of HIV transfer, although the topic remains the subject of ongoing research and debate in the medical community. There are also fears that some may mistakenly believe they will be protected against HIV through circumcision and see circumcision as a safe alternative to other forms of protection, such as condoms.• Results of two further randomised trials to investigate the possible protective effect of circumcision against HIV infections will become available in 2007. An earlier study in the March 2005 Cochrane review of the medical evidence concluded that, “Although the positive results of these observational studies suggest that circumcision is an intervention worth evaluating in randomised controlled trials, the current quality of evidence is insufficient to consider implementation of circumcision as a public-health intervention.”• If circumcision does protect against HIV transmission, the mechanism by which it does so is unclear. One possibility relates to Langerhans cells, a part of the human immune system. Szabo and Short suggest that Langerhans cells in the foreskin may provide an entry point for viral infection.• Three studies identified high concentrations of Langerhans and other HIV target cells in the human prepuce.••• Additionally, McCoombe, Cameron, and Short found that the keratin is thinnest on the foreskin and frenulum.• Conversely, some authors believe that the prepuce has an important immunological function, and that its removal increases the chances of infections.• This hypothesis has been criticised on technical grounds.• HPV Several studies have shown that uncircumcised men are at greater risk of human papilloma virus (HPV) infection.•• While most genital HPV strains are considered harmless, some can cause genital warts or cancer. One study found no statistically significant difference between men with foreskins for HPV infection than those who are circumcised, but did note a significantly higher incidence of HPV lesions and urethritis in uncircumcised men.• Hygiene The American Academy of Pediatrics observes “Circumcision has been suggested as an effective method of maintaining penile hygiene since the time of the Egyptian dynasties, but there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene.”Although the Academy's 1975 statement asserted that "A program of education leading to continuing good personal hygiene would offer all the advantages of circumcision without the attendant surgical risk," the 1999 statement cites a study which found that "appropriate hygiene decreased significantly the incidence of phimosis, adhesions, and inflammation, but did not eliminate all problems." It states that the "relationship among hygiene, phimosis, and penile cancer is uncertain" and further remarks that "genital hygiene needs to be emphasized as a preventive health topic throughout a patient's lifetime." The Royal Australasian College of Physicians emphasizes that a non-circumcised infant's penis requires no special care and should be left alone, stating that attempts to forcibly retract the foreskin, e.g. to clean it, are painful, often injure the foreskin, and can lead to scarring, infections and pathologic phimosis. It is recommended that, while there is no special age where the foreskin should be retractable, once the foreskin becomes retractible, the child should gently wash it with soap and water. It has been suggested, however, that excessive washing of the foreskin and the glans will make infections such as balanitis more likely. Circumcision reduces the amount of smegma produced by the male. Smegma is a combination of exfoliated epithelial cells, transudated skin oils, and moisture that can accumulate under the foreskin of males and within the female vulva area. It has a characteristic strong odor and taste, and is common to all mammals—male and female. While smegma is generally not believed to be harmful to health, the strong odour may be considered to be a nuisance or give the impression of a lack of hygiene. In rare cases, accumulating smegma may help cause balanitis. It has been suggested that circumcision arose in peoples living in arid and sandy regions as a public health measure intended to prevent recurring irritation and infection caused by sand accumulating under the foreskin. Darby, after checking the official war histories of Britain, Australia and New Zealand and other records, and finding no mention of ‘balanitis’ or ‘foreskin’ or ‘circumcision’ dismissed this idea as a “medical urban myth,” concluding that “‘sand under the foreskin,’ balanitis, and circumcision were not significant problems during either of the World Wars.” Infectious and chronic conditions Non-circumcised boys and men tend to have higher rates of various infections and inflammations of the foreskin than circumcised men.• There are less invasive treatments than circumcision for posthitis. Balanitis Balanitis, an inflammation of the glans penis, has a variety of causes.• Birley, et al, also agrees that for many mild forms of balanitis there are less invasive procedures, but does state that there are times when circumcision “might be of benefit in a patient whose balanitis relapses despite these measures, and remains the principal treatment for specific conditions such as lichen sclerosus and plasma cell balanitis.”• Also, less invasive procedures are not as successful in treating balanitis xerotica obliterans, or BXO,••• which is harder to treat.• Lichen sclerosus et atrophicus (LSA) produces a whitish-yellowish patch on the skin, and is not believed to be always harmful or painful, and may sometimes disappear without intervention. Some consider balanitis xerotica obliterans to be a form of LSA that happens to be on the foreskin, where it may cause pathological phimosis. Circumcision is believed to reliably reduce the threat of BXO.• Penile cancer Penile cancer is cancer of the penis, i.e. on the glans or the foreskin. Most cases have been found to occur in men over the age of 70. Kochen and McCurdy performed a life table analysis on penile cancer rates. Their basic assumptions were that these cancers occur exclusively in uncircumcised males and that age-specific rates calculated from older groups were applicable to the 1971 birth cohort. Their overall analysis finds an estimated occurrence rate in uncircumcised males of 1 in 600, or 0.167%, with a median age of occurrence of 67 years old. However, they close their predictions section with the following “Since the uncircumcised male is uniquely susceptible, virtually all of these cancers are preventable by neo-natal circumcision. The number of lifetime incident cancers that could be prevented annually by circumcision can be estimated with birth statistics available for 1971. In that year, there were 1,822,910 recorded live male births. If none had been neonatally circumcised, our analysis predicts that one in 600, or more than 3,000 would have penile cancer in their lifetimes.” However, a small risk is associated with non-classic vigorous circumcisions that leave scarring. In 2005, the American Cancer Society said that while studies suggest that circumcision may reduce the risk of more invasive forms of penile cancer, it is important to concentrate on the main risk factors: poor hygiene, having unprotected sex with multiple partners, and cigarette smoking. They further state that the current consensus of most experts is that circumcision should not be recommended as a prevention strategy for penile cancer. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that studies suggest that neonatal circumcision confers some protection from penile cancer, but circumcision at a later age does not seem to confer the same level of protection. Further, penile cancer is a rare disease and the risk of penile cancer developing in an uncircumcised man, although increased compared with a circumcised man, remains low. The American Medical Association states similarly that although neonatal circumcision seems to lower the risk of contracting penile cancer, because it is rare and occurs later in life, the use of circumcision as a preventive practice is not justified. Phimosis and paraphimosis Pathological phimosis is a condition of a very tight foreskin that makes retraction over the glans painful or impossible. Rickwood suggested that the term 'phimosis' should be restricted to cases in which the prepuce loses suppleness and becomes scarred. Paraphimosis is an acute condition where the tight foreskin is stuck behind the glans and cannot be moved back, curbs the blood flow from the glans. In children, it is sometimes caused by a caregiver trying to forcibly retract the infant foreskin. The AAP state that the true frequency of such problems is unknown. Fergusson et al found phimosis in 16% of non-circumcised boys, while Herzog and Alvarez found it in 2.6%.* Rickwood and Walker raised concern that phimosis is frequently misdiagnosed by physicians confusing it with the developmentally non-retractible foreskin. Several studies have identified phimosis as a risk factor for penile cancer, leading Willcourt to state that it would be irresponsible to expose a patient to risk for longer than necessary.* Other researchers find less invasive treatments for phimosis, and recommend that they be tried first. Urinary tract infections Twelve studies have indicated that neonatal circumcision reduces the occurrence rate of Urinary tract infections in male infants by a factor of about 10.• Studies have found that 1 in 10 premature infants will have a urinary tract infection during the first month of life. * Some of the UTI studies have been criticised for not taking these and other factors into account. A Swedish study found that the cumulative incidence of UTIs in boys under 2 years of age was 2.2%. According to the Lerman and Liao, aside from its effects on UTI infection rates, "Most of the other medical benefits of circumcision probably can be realized without circumcision as long as access to clean water and proper penile hygiene are achieved." Policies of various national medical associations The medical associations noted below find the current data insufficient to recommend neonatal circumcision. They agree that parental choice remains a legitimate reason to perform the procedure. United States The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the following: The American Medical Association supports the general principles of the 1999 Circumcision Policy Statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Canada The Fetus and Newborn Committee of the Canadian Paediatric Society posted Circumcision: Information for Parents in November of 2004, and Neonatal circumcision revisited statements in 1996, undergoing revision as of 2004: United Kingdom As of June of 2006, the British Medical Association's position was as follows: Australasia The Royal Australasian College of Physicians position is as follows:• ... If the operation is to be performed, the medical attendant should ensure this is done by a competent operator, using appropriate anaesthesia and in a safe child-friendly environment. In all cases where parents request a circumcision for their child the medical attendant is obliged to provide accurate information on the risks and benefits of the procedure. Up-to-date, unbiased written material summarising the evidence should be widely available to parents. |ROUTINE CIRCUMCISION OF MALE INFANTS AND BOYS - SUMMARY STATEMENT|Royal Australasian College of Physicians}} Sexual The American Academy of Pediatrics states "a survey of adult males using self-report suggests more varied sexual practice and less sexual dysfunction in circumcised adult men. There are anecdotal reports that penile sensation and sexual satisfaction are decreased for circumcised males. Masters and Johnson noted no difference in exteroceptive and light tactile discrimination on the ventral or dorsal surfaces of the glans penis between circumcised and uncircumcised men." The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) states "The effect of circumcision on penile sensation or sexual satisfaction is unknown. Because the epithelium of a circumcised glans becomes cornified, and because some feel nerve over-stimulation leads to desensitization, many believe that the glans of a circumcised penis is less sensitive. Opinions differ about how this decreased sensitivity, which may result in prolonged time to orgasm, affects sexual satisfaction. An investigation of the exteroceptive and light tactile discrimination of the glans of circumcised and uncircumcised men found no difference on comparison. No valid evidence to date, however, supports the notion that being circumcised affects sexual sensation or satisfaction." History of circumcision It has been variously proposed that circumcision began as a religious sacrifice, as a rite of passage marking a boy's entrance into adulthood, as a form of sympathetic magic to ensure virility, as a means of suppressing (or enhancing) sexual pleasure, as an aid to hygiene where regular bathing was impractical, as a means of marking those of lower (or higher) social status, as a means of differentiating a circumcising group from their non-circumcising neighbors, as a means of discouraging masturbation or other socially proscribed sexual behaviors, to remove "excess" pleasure, to increase a man's attractiveness to women, as a symbolic castration, as a demonstration of one's ability to endure pain, or as a male counterpart to menstruation or the breaking of the hymen. It is possible that circumcision arose independently in different cultures for different reasons. Circumcision in the ancient world The oldest documentary evidence for circumcision comes from ancient Egypt. Tomb artwork from the Sixth Dynasty (2345-2181 BCE) shows men with circumcised penises, and one relief from this period shows the rite being performed on a standing adult male. The Egyptian hieroglyph for "penis" depicts either a circumcised or an erect organ. The examination of Egyptian mummies has found some with foreskins and others who were circumcised. Circumcision was common, although not universal, among ancient Semitic peoples. The Book of Jeremiah, written in the sixth century BCE, lists the Egyptians, Jews, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites as circumcising cultures. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BCE, would add the Colchians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, and Syrians to that list. In the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek dislike of circumcision led to a decline in its incidence among many peoples that had previously practised it. The writer of the 1 Maccabees wrote that under the Seleucids, many Jewish men attempted to hide or reverse their circumcision so they could exercise in Greek gymnasia, where nudity was the norm. First Maccabees also relates that the Seleucids forbade the practice of brit milah (Jewish circumcision), and punished those who performed it–as well as the infants who underwent it–with death. Medical circumcision in the 19th century and early 20th century Several hypotheses have been raised in explaining the American public's acceptance of infant circumcision as preventive medicine. The success of the germ theory of disease had not only enabled physicians to combat many of the postoperative complications of surgery, but had made the wider public deeply suspicious of dirt and bodily secretions. Accordingly, the smegma that collects under the foreskin was viewed as unhealthy, and circumcision readily accepted as good penile hygiene.* Second, moral sentiment of the day regarded masturbation as not only sinful, but also physically and mentally unhealthy, stimulating the foreskin to produce the host of maladies of which it was suspected. In this climate, circumcision could be employed as a means of discouraging masturbation.* All About the Baby, a popular parenting book of the 1890s, recommended infant circumcision for precisely this purpose. Interestingly, a 1410-man survey in the United States in 1992, Laumann found that circumcised men were more likely to report masturbating at least once a month. With the proliferation of hospitals in urban areas, childbirth, at least among the upper and middle classes, was increasingly undertaken in the care of a physician in a hospital rather than that of a midwife in the home. It has been suggested that once a critical mass of infants were being circumcised in the hospital, circumcision became a class marker of those wealthy enough to afford a hospital birth.* By the 1920s, advances in the understanding of disease had undermined much of the original medical basis for preventive circumcision. Doctors continued to promote it, however, as good penile hygiene and as a preventive for a handful of conditions local to the penis: balanitis, phimosis, and penile cancer. Routine infant circumcision was taken up in the English-speaking parts of Canada, the United States and Australia, and to a lesser extent in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Although it is difficult to determine historical circumcision rates, one estimate* of infant circumcision rates in the United States holds that 30% of newborn American boys were being circumcised in 1900, 55% in 1925, and 72% in 1950. Circumcision since 1950 In 1949, a lack of consensus in the medical community as to whether circumcision carried with it any notable health benefit motivated the United Kingdom's newly-formed National Health Service to remove routine infant circumcision from its list of covered services. One factor in this rejection of circumcision may have been Douglas Gairdner’s famous study, The fate of the foreskin, which revealed that for the years 1942–1947, about 16 children per year had died because of circumcision in England and Wales, a rate of about 1 per 6000 performed circumcisions. Since then, circumcision has been an out-of-pocket cost to parents, and the proportion of newborns circumcised in England and Wales has fallen to less than one percent. In Canada (where public medical insurance is universal and there is no private insurance), individual provincial health services began delisting circumcision in the 1980s. In South Korea, circumcision was largely unknown before the establishment of the United States trusteeship in 1945 and the spread of American influence. More than 90% of South Korean high school boys are now circumcised, but the average age of circumcision is 12 years *. In some South African ethnic groups, circumcision has roots in several belief systems, and is performed most of the time on teenage boys: "...The young men in the eastern Cape belong to the Xhosa ethnic group for whom circumcision is considered part of the passage into manhood... A law was recently introduced requiring initiation schools to be licensed and only allowing circumcisions to be performed on youths aged 18 and older. But Eastern Cape provincial Health Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo told Reuters news agency that boys as young as 11 had died. Each year thousands of young men go into the bush alone, without water, to attend initiation schools. Many do not survive the ordeal..." *. Prior to 1989, the American Academy of Pediatrics had a long-standing opinion that medical indications for routine circumcision were lacking. This stance, according to the AMA, was reversed in 1989, following new evidence of reduction in risk of urinary tract infection. A study in 1987 found that the prominent reasons for parents choosing circumcision were "concerns about the attitudes of peers and their sons' self concept in the future," rather than medical concerns.* A 1999 study reported that reasons for circumcision included "ease of hygiene (67 percent), ease of infant circumcision compared with adult circumcision (63 percent), medical benefit (41 percent), and father circumcised (37 percent)." The authors commented that "Medical benefits were cited more frequently in this study than in past studies, although medical issues remain secondary to hygience and convenience."* A 2001 study reported that "The most important reason to circumcise or not circumcise the child was health reasons."*A 2005 study speculated that increased recognition of the potential benefits may be responsible for an observed increase in the rate of neonatal circumcision in the USA between 1988 and 2000.* In a 2001 survey, 86.6% of parents felt respected by their medical provider, and parents who did not circumcise "felt less respected by their medical provider".* The major medical societies in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand do not support routine non-therapeutic infant circumcision. Major medical organizations in the United States do not recommend routine circumcision, but instead state that parents should decide what is in their child's best interests. Neonatal circumcision remains the most common pediatric operation carried out in the U.S. today. Prevalence of circumcision Estimates of the proportion of males that are circumcised worldwide vary from one sixth to one third. United Kingdom Rickwood et al estimated that 3.8% of male children in the UK are currently (2000) being circumcised by the age of 15.*, having fallen from about 6.5% in the mid 1980s. The authors considered half of these circumcisions unnecessary, and called for a target to reduce to the level of 2%. Dave et al, reporting on a national survey in 2000, found that 11.7% of 16-19 year olds, and 19.6% of 40-44 year olds said they had been circumcised *. Denmark Denmark has a circumcision rate which has been stable for the last fifty years amongst male children at about 2%. For example, only 511 out of approximately 478000 Danish boys aged 0-14 years were circumcised in 1986, corresponding to a cumulative national circumcision rate of around 1.6% by the age of 15 years. * South Korea It has been estimated on the basis of an academic medical survey that some 78% of South Korean men may be circumcised and it has been stated that "South Korea has possibly the largest absolute number of teenage or adult circumcisions anywhere in the world. Because circumcision started through contact with the American military during the Korean War, South Korea has an unusual history of circumcision." United States Statistics from different sources give different pictures of infant circumcision rates in the United States. Deferral of discussion until after birth, combined with the fact that many parents’ decisions about circumcision are preconceived, contribute to the high rate of elective circumcision. A recent study, which used data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (a sample of 5-7 million of the nation's total inpatient stays, and representing a 20% sample taken from 8 states in 1988 and 28 in 2000), stated that circumcisions rose from 48.3% in 1988 to 61.1% in 1997. Figures from the Nationwide Hospital Discharge Survey (for the 2003 survey based on a sample of 320,000 inpatient stays in 426 non-Federal short-stay hospitals), state that circumcision rates declined from 64.7% in 1980 to 59.0% in 1990, then rose to 64.1% in 1995, and fell again to 55.9% in 2003. Overall, the West saw the most significant change, declining from 61.8% in 1980 to 31.4% in 2003. The decline in the West has been partly attributed to increasing births among Latin Americans, who usually do not circumcise. It has been noted that the statistics from these national samples differs from higher rates that have been documented in individual centers. One explanation is that "the published results of national statistical surveys represent only coded diagnoses obtained from birth centers; the reported figures do not include males who are circumcised at a later date for religious, medical, or personal reasons or who received newborn circumcision that was not coded." A national survey of adult men found that 91% of men born in the 1970s, and 83% of men born in the 1980s were circumcised. Some obstetricians have been accused of using circumcision as a quick and easy way of making money *. Medicaid funding for infant circumcision used to be universal in the United States however sixteen states no longer pay for the procedure under Medicaid *. One study in the Midwest of the US found that this had no effect on the newborn circumcision rate but it did affect the demand for circumcision at a later time. Canada The incidence of child circumcision in Canada has been declining steadily. The National Institute for Health Information reports that the percentage of newborn boys circumcised in hospital was 9.2 percent in 2005.* See also Circumcision techniques Circumcision opposition Circumcision promotion Further reading | |||||||||||
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