Physiological phimosis

Physiological phimosis is a medical term that is used to designate the normal, healthy, developmental condition of the penis during infancy, boyhood, and adolescence.

Physiological is a word that designates a normal, healthy condition. It opposes the word pathological that designates an abnormal, perhaps diseased condition.

Phimosis is the word derived from Greek that denotes the condition of a foreskin that does not retract. Phimosis is not a disease.

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Discussion

The foreskin evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in men and animals to provide protective functions that enhance survival. It provides protection to the penis from trauma and infection. Its presence over the glans penis prevents meatal stenosis and keratinization.

Nature provides two means to prevent retraction and maintain protection of the foreskin during the developmental period. 1) The inner surface of the foreskin is fused with the underlying glans penis by a common synechia to prevent retraction. Forcible retraction will tear the synechia so should be avoided. 2) Nature provides a second method is provided to prevent retraction by making the tip of the immature foreskin too narrow to pass over the glans penis. The tip of the foreskin normally widens to render the foreskin retractable by age 18, but a few persist until later. Continued physiological phimosis with non-retractable foreskin into adult life is a normal variant.

The first person to retract a boy's foreskin should be the boy himself.

Adolescents

A few pubescent intact adolescents will find that their foreskin has retained the normal childhood tightness. French physician Dr. Michel Beaugé (1997) recommends that teens adopt a masturbation style that will cause stretching of the foreskin.

See also

• Development of retractable foreskin
• Masturbation
• Pathological phimosis

External links

• Ward K. The Doctors says my child has phimosis!, Your Whole Baby. Retrieved 22 October 2025.