Changes

In contrast to the sometimes dramatic somatic responses of the neonate to operation without anesthesia, the psychological consequences of this trauma are conjectural. Psychoanalyst Erik Erickson has described the first of eight stages of man as the development of basic trust versus basic mistrust. For the baby to be plucked from his bed, [[Circumstraint|strapped in a spread eagle position]], and doused with chilling antiseptic is perhaps consistent with other new-found discomforts of extra-uterine existence. The application of crushing clamps and [[excision]] of penile tissue, however, probably do little to engender a trusting, congenial, relationship with the infant's new surroundings.<ref name="grimes1978">{{REFjournal