Physiological phimosis
Physiological phimosis is a medical term that is used to designate the normal, healthy, developmental condition of the penis during infancy, boyhood, pre-teen, and adolescence.
Physiological is a word that designates a normal, healthy condition. It opposes the word pathological that designates an abnormal, perhaps diseased condition.[1]
Phimosis is the word derived from Greek that denotes the condition of a foreskin that does not retract. Phimosis is not a disease.
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.[2] 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.[3] 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. One-half of boys can retract by 10.4 years of age, but the others do not become retractable until later.[4]
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.[5]
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.[6]
Warning to parents
Some medical doctors, either because of ignorance or because of greed, will tell parents that their normal, healthy son, with a normal, healthy, non-retractile foreskin needs a circumcision. Circumcision is a painful, harmful, and usually unnecessary amputation that permanently destroys the many useful, healthful, beneficial physiological functions of the foreskin, so surgery should be avoided except as a last resort.
See also
External links
Ward K. The Doctors says my child has phimosis!
, Your Whole Baby. Retrieved 22 October 2025.
References
- ↑
Physiological
. Retrieved 22 October 2025. - ↑
Fleiss P, Hodges F, Van Howe RS. Immunological functions of the human prepuce. Sex Trans Infect. October 1998; 74(5): 364-67. PMID. PMC. DOI. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
- ↑ Anonymous (2016).
Phimosis and Balanitis
, Doctors Opposing Circumcision. Retrieved 22 October 2025. - ↑ Thorvaldsen MA, Meyhoff HH. Patologisk eller fysiologisk fimose?. Ugeskr Læger. 25 April 2005; 167(17): 1858-62. PMID. Retrieved 29 October 2025.
- ↑ Wright JE. Further to the "Further Fate of the Foreskin". Med J Aust. 7 February 1994; 160: 134-135. PMID. Retrieved 22 October 2025.
- ↑ Beaugé M. The causes of adolescent phimosis. Br J Sex Med. September 1997; : 26. Retrieved 26 October 2025.
