Hygiene
The word hygiene comes from Greek, and it means "the protection and promotion of health." It has been mis-understood to mean cleanliness. Keeping the body clean is only part of what it takes to be healthful. In some cases, excessive washing can actually cause health problems.
Contents
Victorian usage
Victorian doctors falsely believed that thinking immoral or impure thoughts could cause neurological disorders such as feeblemindedness or epilepsy. They also believed that masturbation would cause one to think immoral or impure thoughts that would cause brain damage. Therefore, the foreskin and masturbation were viewed as unhygenic. So when a Victorian doctor spoke of circumcision being hygienic, he meant mental health, not physical cleanliness.
Ignorance and misinformation
Misinformation abounds regarding the hygiene of the intact penis. In the United States, especially, doctors tend to be ignorant, misinformed, or simply uninformed concerning the hygienic care of intact men and boys, and this happens for a variety of reasons. As of now, America is primarily a country where circumcision is prevalent, and thus intact male genitals are unfamiliar to many Americans. Many American medical doctors, are ignorant of the subject because they are themselves circumcised, wives to circumcised men, and/or mothers to circumcised children. Additionally, care of the intact male genitals is rarely mentioned in medical school. The foreskin and the proper care for intact genitals tends to be absent in pediatric literature.[1]
This article provides factual information to help medical personnel and parents understand the proper care of the penis in its unaltered state.
The AAP concerning circumcision and hygiene
One of the most common justifications cited for non-therapeutic circumcision of a boy is that it is supposed to facilitate hygiene. However, according the "Circumcision Policy Statement" produced by the "Task Force on Circumcision" appointed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which was published in Pediatrics in 1999 and reaffirmed on September 1, 2005, "there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene".[2]
Care of newborn, infants, toddlers, and boys
Boys are born with a non-retractable foreskin.[3] Retraction cannot be done because the tip of the foreskin is too narrow to pass over the glans penis and/or the inner foreskin is fused with the glans penis by a synechia. No attempt should be made to retract a boy's foreskin. Attempts to retract a non-retractile foreskin will injure the boy. Caregivers should wash the outside of the penis as one might wash a finger.[4] The foreskin is self-cleaning, so no further cleaning is necessary. The first person to retract a boy's foreskin should be the boy himself.[5]
The information provided by supposed authorities regarding when the foreskin of a boy becomes retractable is usually wrong. The foreskin may be become retractable after a few years, but it usually does not. Thorvaldsen & Meyhoff (2005) conducted a survey of young men in Denmark where boys are preserved intact. They found that the average age of first foreskin retraction is 10.4 years.[6] This means that many boys' foreskins become retractable even later.
Penile care for adolescents and teens
By the onset of puberty, most, but not all boys, have a retractable foreskin. Boys with a retractable foreskin should retract and wash their foreskin when they bathe. Excessive washing and use of soap, shampoo, and body wash on the mucosa inside the foreskin should be avoided because it dries the oils from the mucosal tissue.[7] Warm water is sufficient for cleaning, which should not be done to excess.
See also
External links
(8 August 2004). Penile hygiene for intact (non-circumcised) males
, Circumcision Reference Library. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
References
- ↑
Osborn LM, Metcalf TJ, Mariani EM. Hygienic care in uncircumcised infants. Pediatrics. March 1981; 67: 365-7. PMID. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
- ↑ Task Force on Circumcision. Circumcision Policy Statement. Pediatrics. March 1999; 103(3): 686-93. PMID.
- ↑ Simpson ET, Barraclough P. The management of the paediatric foreskin. Aust Fam Physician. 1998; 27(5): 382-3. PMID. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ↑ Geisheker, John V. (March 2016).
Care of the intact penis
, Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.). Retrieved 28 May 2020. - ↑ Wright JE. Further to "the further fate of the foreskin". Med J Aust. 7 February 1994; 160: 134-5. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ↑ Thorvaldsen MA, Meyhoff H. Pathologic or physiologic phimosis? [Patologisk eller fysiologisk fimose?] (Danish). Ugeskr Læger. 25 April 2005; 167(17): 1858-62. PMID. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ↑ Birley HDL, Luzzi GA, Bell R. Clinical features and management of recurrent balanitis: association with atopy and genital washing 1993; 69(5): 400-3. PMID. PMC. DOI. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
