Protection of intact newborns in hospital

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. An American hospital is likely be a dangerous place for the foreskin of an intact boy. Non-therapeutic circumcision of newborn boys remains a common practice despite its harmful and unethical nature. Circumcision is a profit center for hospitals, so many will promote harmful circumcision in various ways. It is easy for a nursery attendant to make a mistake and bring an intact boy for an unwanted circumcision. A circumcision that has been performed without valid informed consent is a wrongful circumcision.

Mansfield et al. (1995) reported, 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, not only for the circumcision charges, but also for all hospital charges. Bollinger (2012) estimated the gross profit from harmful, unnecessary circumcision of the newborn to be $3.6 billion annually, 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, painful, 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.
• Prepare yourself by viewing The Circumcision Movie.
• Type out, print, and sign a letter to the hospital to prohibit circumcision of your newborn infant son. Take it to the hospital and add it to the file.
• There will be a lot of papers to sign upon admission. There usually would be 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 by a surrogate 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. When this happens parents may file a complaint through the free DoNoHarm.report service of Intact America.
• Rooming in — Keeping the newborn in the mother's room — offers significant advantages 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.

Solicitation for circumcision surgery

Intact America commissioned a survey by Qualtrics of the number of times that parents are solicited for a consent for non-therapeutic infant circumcision. The average was 8 times, which resulted in a 143 percent increase in the number of non-therapeutic, medically-unnecessary circumcisions carried out. Giving in to the constant solicitation means that three additional charges will be incurred:

1. A hospital service charge or facility fee.
2. A physician's fee.
3. Additional room and board fee.

Parents are reminded that neonatal circumcision has no medical indication, does not treat or prevent disease, causes trauma, is non-therapeutic, unnecessary, causes extreme pain, and causes life-long irreversible harm because of the loss of the multi-functional foreskin. Circumcision is a high-profit service, so hospitals push parents to grant consent for circumcision, regardless of the lifetime harm to the child.

There is no need to decide immediately. A circumcision operation may be performed at any age. If a medical indication for circumcision develops later, then a circumcision may be performed at that time.

When approached about consent for non-therapeutic circumcision in hospital, parents may state:

The foreskin of my baby boy belongs to him and not to me. He has a legal right to bodily integrity. I do not have a right to grant consent for a medically-unnecessary, non-therapeutic circumcision.

Granting of consent for circumcision is his right, not mine. He may make that decision when he reaches the age of majority.

See also

• Care of intact, foreskinned boys
• Circumcision of the newborn
• Cole Jordan Groth
• Intact-friendly doctors list
• Wrongful circumcision
• United States of America

External links

This older article is somewhat 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.
• Milos M (11 July 2022). Ask Marilyn – Why do they keep asking me about circumcising my baby boy?, Intact America. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
• At the hospital, Your Whole Baby. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
• Alissa, Kristel (23 December 2024). Where Circumcision Advocates Strike: Protecting Intact Boys From Harm, Intact America. Retrieved 24 February 2025.