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Pain
,→Post-surgical pain: Revise text.
Circumcision is an invasive cutting and amputation. Like other invasive operations, post-surgical pain persists after the surgery for days or weeks. Infant boys will not receive effective analgesia because their young age makes such drugs dangerous.
Howard, Howard, & Weitzman ''et al''. (1994) studied male infants after their neonatal circumcision. They recorded the comfort scores of the infants at numerous periods after circumcision. They also observed and recorded feeding behavior.
It was found that feeding behavior deteriorated significantly after circumcision. Some breastfeed infants were unable to breastfeed and required formula feeding after circumcision. Acetaminophen was found to be almost totally ineffective against the post-circumcision pain. It did have some effect six hours after the circumcision. The authors concluded "that circumcision of the newborn causes severe and persistent pain."<ref name="howard1994">{{REFjournal