Thai Doctor Advises Circumcision For My Son

[BuddhistDruid]

We recently took our 10 month old twins in for the MMR shots. One boy and one girl. The doctor did an examination of the babies before their vaccinations. While my daughter was fine, when examining my son, the doctor said that his foreskin was not opening normally and recommended we circumcise him to remove the problem. I am understandably concerned about this.

Despite being male, I am American and was circumcised as an infant, as was everyone I knew growing up, so I have very little practical understanding of how small the opening for the foreskin can be, and when it can be reliably determined that there is a problem. If it is true that my son has a medical condition, I would like to perform the surgery as early as possible. I certainly would not want him having memories of a procedure like this. On the other hand, most of what I have found on the internet says that it is quite normal for the foreskin not to retract in boys around 1 year of age (true in approximately 50% of cases) however I can find no information on an average diameter for the opening in the foreskin, so I have no way of determining for myself if my son's condition is normal.

Before taking my son to get a second opinion, I would like to understand as much as I can on my own about what I am seeing, if for no other reason that to be able to speak intelligently with the doctor about the issue. Is anyone familiar with this area, and can you offer any suggestions on how I can confirm for myself what the doctor has suggested may be a problem?

I would also like to point out that this was a doctor at a government hospital. Not because I wish to imply anything about the quality of the doctor, but simply to remove any suspicions that there could be a financial motive behind the opinion.

[FBN]

Most pediatricians would probably agree that, other than for religious purposes, there is no medical reason to perform circumcision at this age. It is normal, as you have also found, that the foreskin will not retract till age 1 or even later.

Unless there is severe obstruction to urine flow such as ballooning of the foreskin when passing urine or other very significant signs of obstruction, nothing needs to be done at this stage.. Some physicians may also suggest to "loosen" the foreskin from the glans at this stage with an instrument, it should also not be performed as this may cause damage to the sensitive skin of the glans and make the problem worse..