Protection of intact newborns in hospital

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Protection of intact newborns in hospital is an important but frequently overlooked parental duty for parents of a newborn intact boy in an American maternity hospital. Non-therapeutic circumcision of newborn boys remains a common practice despite its unethical nature. Circumcision is a profit center for hospitals, so many will promote circumcision in various ways. It is easy for a nursery attendant to make a mistake and bring an intact boy for an unwanted circumcision.

Mansfield et al. (1995) report, when a newborn is to be circumcised, both mother and newborn remain in hospital an average of six hours longer, which substantially increases revenue to the hospital, so hospitals encourage and promote circumcision regardless of the pain, trauma, loss of tissue and function, and permanent irreversible harm to the newborn.

Precautionary steps for parents

There are a number of steps that parents may take to lessen the chance of a wrongful, unwanted, harmful circumcision.

• Review information on circumcision, so as not to be deceived by false or deceptive information that may be presented in hospital.
• If the maternity facility allows a birth plan, then specify intactness in the birth plan.
• Discuss your desire for an intact son with your attending physician.
• There will be a lot of papers to sign upon admission. There usually is a circumcision consent form provided whether the baby is a boy or girl. Be careful to NOT sign a consent for circumcision form. Granting of consent for non-therapeutic circumcision (all newborn circumcision is non-therapeutic) is an unethical practice.
• The latest stratagem to obtain consent is to send nurses into the room to ask the mother if she wants her newborn circumcised. This is done repeatedly, in hope of breaking a mother's will. Reports indicate that parents have been asked as many as twelve times. Promotion of unnecessary surgery is highly unethical. Awareness of this unethical practice will help parents to avoid caving in to the hospital's tactics.
• Rooming in — Keeping the newborn in the mother's room offers significant protections in facilitating initiation of breastfeeding, protection from infectious diseases that may be present in the newborn nursery, and last but certainly not least, protection from wrongful circumcision.

External links

This older article is some what out-of-date but still has some useful information:

• Hill, George (16 March 2002). Protection of Infant Boys from Wrongful Circumcision in American Hospitals, Circumcision Information and Resource Pages. Retrieved 22 May 2023.