Chapter 16 (Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma)

From Peaceful Beginnings

Chapter Sixteen: Is Circumcision Traumatic for a Newborn Baby?

Circumcision was often deliberately intended to be a means of torture during primitive initiation rites. Today circumcision is always performed under anesthesia if the patient is an adult or child past early infancy. Yet when the same operation is performed on a newborn infant it is almost always done without anesthesia. Why ?!

Does the newborn baby feel any fear or discomfort as he is strapped into the plastic circumcision tray? Does he register pain when his genitals are pinched, cut, clamped, or sliced? Does he feel soreness during the following days as his freshly‑cut penis heals? Or is he not sufficiently developed enough to be aware of anything?

In many of the personal accounts in this book it was obvious to those involved that the infant underwent a severe amount of pain. It would seem that simple common sense and basic knowledge of the feelings and responses of infants in other respects would plainly indicate that the newborn infant is sensitive and aware and is just as capable of feeling pain as any other person at any other age.

However, many people, both lay and medical professionals, insist that the infant feels little or nothing when he undergoes this operation. There are people who have dismissed me as a neurotic, overly‑sensitive mother for my heartfelt concern about this matter.

One father, after watching his infant son being circumcised, assured me that the operation could not possibly have been traumatic for the baby because all he heard was "one tiny little cry!" One doctor has tried to tell me that he is able to circumcise a baby "so gently that the baby just goes to sleep during the operation." An acquaintance who is a child psychiatrist has labeled my efforts as "struggling with minutiae."

The textbook for a class on "Marriage and Parenthood" that my husband and I took during college, tells future parents the following about the newborn:

"For the most part, the neonate is blankly unemotional, although he may smile when contented, whether he is awake or asleep. There is no indication that the neonate feels affection toward anybody or anything, although such affection develops quickly in the first few months. "The neonate is also relatively insensitive to pain, but his sensitivity picks up rapidly in the first few days. Circumcision can be performed a few days after birth with no anesthetic and with apparently very little discomfort." 1.

While some people insist that the infant feels nothing, others attempt to justify neonatal circumcision by claiming that perhaps the baby feels some pain, but it is much more traumatic for an older child or an adult. For example Katz states:

"Circumcision can be done at any time, but the amount of post‑operative pain and irritability is proportional to the age. Up to three weeks of age, pain and irritability virtually occur only at the time of the operation. From four weeks to three months of age the baby is irritable for a night or two and an analgesic is recommended. From three months to a year the pain and irritability last three or four days, and from a year onwards the response varies with the individual. The average adult experiences pain and discomfort for seven to ten days. "While functional development does not necessarily parallel the progress of nerve myelination, it is certain [?] that not all tracts and pathways in the nervous system are fully functional at birth. No anesthetic is necessary during the first 2 1/2to 3 months after birth." 2.

It is curious that Katz is "certain" of what he states, because absolutely no studies have been conducted that support the belief that infants feel little or no pain.

Statements informing people that babies feel nothing while undergoing circumcision arouse anger and disgust among those of us who are opposed to infant circumcision. However, my own experiences when my first two sons were circumcised seemed to bear this out. Neither experience left me with any impression that the baby had undergone anything traumatic.

Eric's foreskin was cut off the morning after he was born. He was brought to me several times that day for feedings. During those feedings he was never crying, fussing, or showing any outward indication that he was in pain.

Jason underwent the same operation the morning after his birth. We had “rooming‑in" and I knew exactly when it was done. I recall the doctor taking Jason in his bassinet to another room about 30 feet away and bringing him back to me about 15 minutes later. Although I was within earshot I did not hear any crying. After he was back with me the day continued as usual with Jason sleeping and nursing as before. It did not appear to me that circumcision had traumatized the baby.

Why then did Ryan's circumcision seem to be such a horrible, traumatic experience? The answer will be made clear further on in this chapter.

Others who have witnessed infant circumcision describe the event in terms of extreme trauma and incredible cruelty, For example, according to Foley:

"The circumcision of a newborn is a spectacle so appalling and revolting in its cruelty that, on their first encounter with the ordeal, many robust medical students faint. The infant is tied down securely to a circumcision board, with his genitals exposed. Next, the entire foreskin and much of the penile skin is pulled through a clamp, and as the clamp's screw is tightened the skin is crushed off. As much as 80% of the total penile skin is removed. In this country anesthetics are rarely used. The infant struggles and screams, and often vomits and defecates, before lapsing into unconsciousness.” 3.

The psychiatrist Dr. Rene Spitz has been quoted as saying:

"I find it difficult to believe that circumcision, as practiced in our hospitals ... would not represent stress and shock of some kind. Nobody who has witnessed the way these infants are operated on without anesthesia ... the infant screaming ... in manifest pain, can reasonably deny that such treatment is likely to leave traces of some kind on the personality.... This is one of the cruelties the medical profession thoughtlessly inflicts on infants, just because these cannot tell what they suffer....” 4.

Why do some people perceive infant circumcision as a trifling, momentary event of which the baby is scarcely aware, while others describe it as severe torture? Can people really be talking about the same occurrence?

Witnessing and describing what one believes another person feels in any given situation is a highly subjective endeavor. One's own personality and involvement in the situation influence one's perception. Almost all parents who have ever had a son circumcised, or medical professionals who have ever performed or assisted with the operation -‑ if presented with the idea that circumcision hurts babies‑react with a certain amount of defensiveness. For circumcision is not done out of deliberate intent to harm the infant. No one wants to believe that what he is doing or advocating inflicts a great deal of pain on helpless babies! If one is to accept such a belief, then he would either have to recognize in himself an element of cruelty and sadism, or he would have to admit that he was wrong in the past and quit performing or authorizing circumcisions. It is difficult for most people to admit that they have been wrong. It is difficult for many doctors to learn from lay people.

Circumcision of infants is a culturally accepted event in our society. The context has somehow made people fail to question this act. In most situations if someone were to forcefully restrain a child and do something to hurt his genitals, people would consider that child abuse. But we have accepted the same action within hospital nurseries! If some doctor were to cut off the little fingers of all the newborns in a hospital or to slash the vaginas of all the infant girls he would quickly be thrown in jail! Everyone would be horrified! But somehow we are inconsistent and do not give infant boys the same consideration. A few years ago a sexual psychopath was tried and convicted for the rape and murder of a two‑year‑old girl. People were especially aghast when they learned that he had applied vise grips to the child's tiny nipples! Yet we believe that it is okay to apply clamps to infant foreskins! Of course we as adults know that the intention is different. We assume that a doctor who circumcises babies is not a sexual psychopath or sadist. But, his motive makes no difference to the baby!

It is also true that for medical professionals a certain amount of callousness develops as a result of working in an environment where they deal with so many people and see an unusual amount of suffering. Compared to the serious surgery, horrible injuries and life‑threatening diseases that they constantly witness, infant circumcision to them may appear trivial.

Some people are simply not particularly attuned or sensitive to the feelings of others. Some consider any sentiment about babies as maudlin or silly. Even some anti‑circumcision activists are primarily concerned about unnecessary surgery and the rights of males to keep their foreskins and consider trauma to infants an extremely minor matter.

Much of the focus of the medical profession is on objective, "scientific" emotionless facts. This perspective is certainly expedient and necessary for conducting much research.It is also true that any medical professional has to maintain some level of emotional detachment in order to effectively carry out his or her responsibilities, particularly because they witness an incredible amount of injury, trauma, and tragedy. Unfortunately many medical professionals have become geared to think only along those lines. It is sad indeed that the people whose role is to cure the sick and attend birth in our society have so frequently fallen into the trap of being detached instead of caring about the feelings of others.

However, there are certain characteristics of the newborn and his response to the operation that have even led some basically sensitive and caring adults to believe that circumcision is not traumatic for him.

With rare exceptions no one can consciously remember being an infant. In a sense, infancy is a "natural amnesiac." Therefore, some people believe that since events in infancy cannot be recalled, nothing that happens in infancy is truly important. Sometimes men who have been circumcised as infants will say "It was done to me and I don't remember it, so it must not have hurt." The concept that events during birth, infancy, or early childhood are perceived, are remembered, can be recalled through therapy, and can have an effect on the rest of that individual's life is too "out in left field" for many people to accept. It is plausible that for some people their own traumas during birth and infancy, and the subsequent repression of feelings, causes them in turn to reject this concept and to fail to sympathize with the feelings of others.

It is true that newborn infants do heal rapidly from any type of injury. Normally the infant's circumcised penis is healed within about a week. Also, stitches are not normally required following infant circumcision, but are necessary when an older child or adult undergoes the same operation. Yet another factor is that infant circumcision takes very little time. Normally the operation only takes about 5‑10 minutes. The short amount of time involved, the absence of stitches, and rapid healing process have all led some people to believe that infant circumcision is less traumatic than for someone older.

However, time as perceived by infants is undoubtedly different than what adults perceive. Most adults could stand a five minute painful procedure without being traumatized. But for an infant five minutes under a circumcision clamp must seem tremendously long! Also, a week's worth of healing undoubtedly is a tremendous amount of suffering for someone who has only been in this world for a few days. To further the contrast between infant and adult circumcision: Many lay people are unaware that the newborn's foreskin is sealed to the glans. Therefore, when the foreskin is cut off, one layer of skin has literally been torn away from another. The freshly exposed infant's glans is raw, extremely sensitive skin like new skin beneath a blister. When an adult is circumcised, in most cases his foreskin has long since freed itself from the glans. Also, the freshly‑circumcised adult penis is not in constant contact with feces or urine‑soaked diapers! But most importantly, the older individual is able to understand what is being done to his body!

As has been stated elsewhere, for many parents their babies' circumcision has been such a "behind the scenes" procedure that they are simply not aware of it. Perhaps bonding has not been allowed to take place, or perhaps the mother is still too sore, exhausted, or drugged from giving birth to be concerned over what is happening to her baby. If she does not change diapers in the hospital, she will not even see her son's penis until they both go home. By this time his circumcision is nearly healed and she simply never realizes that he underwent a traumatic operation.

How trauma and pain affect a person is a highly individual matter. Some people are not particularly bothered by pain. Two individuals, each given the same stimuli, may respond to it differently, one perceiving it as extremely unpleasant, the other hardly noticing it. Witness the incredible gamut of women's reactions to labor and birth -‑ ranging from "there was nothing to it" to "it was the most horrible torture I have ever imagined!" While it is true that earlier traumas influence our perceptions during later experiences, some differences in pain perception may be inborn. It is reasonable to assume that such differences also exist in newborns. (Although I doubt that there has ever been any infant who felt no pain as his foreskin was severed.) This could be yet another explanation as to why witnesses of circumcision report such conflicting views.

A final, important consideration is that adults expect a vocal response to be the appropriate indicator of pain. Some infants do actively scream as they undergo circumcision. But other babies cry only a little or not at all during the procedure. If a baby does not make much noise in response to the operation, frequently adult observers conclude "It must not have hurt him because he did not cry." Also, babies, characteristically fall into a deep sleep following circumcision. This has caused some people to conclude "Look! It didn't hurt him! He just went to sleep!" The significance of both absence of crying and deep sleep manifested by babies in response to circumcision will be explored in greater depth.

It is clear that the wide range of opinions about the infant's response to circumcision reflects selective perception on the part of observers. Simple common sense would support the fact that the infant does indeed feel pain. Recent scientifically conducted studies also indicate that the infant feels more pain from circumcision than most people would like to believe. There is no documented evidence or scientific study that supports the belief that infants do not feel pain. Therefore it is curious that medical professionals have so frequently clung to this belief. Usually doctors are quick to dismiss lay people's ideas as being "not valid," "unscientific," or “unproven." Yet the idea that circumcision is not painful for babies is equally "unproven" and "unscientific."

Interestingly, the earlier medical writings about infant circumcision unquestioningly state that the operation is indeed extremely painful for an infant.

In 1904, DeLee wrote:

"It is cruel to subject the helpless tiny patient to unnecessary pain. Mild anesthetics are used....” 5.

According to Valentine in 1901:

"Ordinary humanitarian sentiment prevents consideration of circumcision without anesthesia. I do not believe ... that any physician would rend a mother's heart by so torturing her babe. It is specious to hold that an infant's sensibilities are not sufficiently developed to permit it to perceive pain. If so, why does the infant cry when a maladjusted pin pricks it, or when its delicate skin is irritated by a badly folded or moistened diaper? Is it logical to assume that its shrieks of agony, when a foreskin is cut or torn off, are but reflex?” 6.

Scientific Investigations in Regard to the Infant's Reaction to Circumcision

Very few scientific studies have been conducted in regard to this matter. The few that are worth noting have all taken place during the 1970s. In some of these studies the researchers' primary concern was not circumcision. They simply wanted to study infant response to a stressful procedure. In one study the intent was to observe gender differences among newborns and it was found that circumcision distorted the results.

Emde and his associates investigated the sleep patterns of newborns. People experience two types of sleep. Sleep cycles usually begin with a period of active, rapid eye movement called "REM" sleep. Dreams take place during this phase of sleep. Later in the sleep cycle people usually experience a deeper, inactive type of sleep without rapid eye movements called "non‑REM" sleep.

They investigated how stressful stimulation (provided by circumcision) would affect the sleep cycles of newborns. One theory predicted that the stress of circumcision would result in an increased amount of active, restless sleep. The second theory predicted that infants would exhibit "conservation‑withdrawal" behavior. In their technical language: "...a reduction of incoming stimuli by alteration of sensory thresholds with a decline of activity." In plain English, babies would withdraw into an abnormally deep sleep in response to pain and trauma.

Six normal, full‑term newborn male infants were observed continuously over a 24‑hour period. Midway through the observation period they all underwent circumcision with a Plasti‑bell device. Four of the six infants evinced increased amounts of non‑REM sleep of 28%, 72%, 76%, and 80% during the 12 hours following the operation. One infant was kept awake by his father and the other was clearly an exception. Three other infants of the same age who did not undergo circumcision were also observed for 24 hours. They showed no increase in non‑REM sleep during the second 12 hours.

They then studied 20 normal, full‑term male infants, 10 of whom were circumcised and 10 who were not circumcised. They used an electro‑encephalograph polygraph machine to record sleep patterns and other behavior in more detail. They were studied on two successive nights beginning at 24 hours of age. Eight of the ten circumcised infants showed an increase in non‑REM sleep, with increases ranging from 41%‑121%. The amount of non‑REM sleep varied little from the first night to the second among the infants who were not circumcised. 7.

It is reasonable to conclude that this abnormal sleeping pattern on the part of the infant is a withdrawal, a self‑protective reaction to the trauma.

Anders and Chalemian attempted to repeat Emde's study, but theirs differed in a number of ways and produced different results.

They observed 11 normal, 3‑day‑old, full‑term male infants for 3 separate 1‑hour periods, 1 hour prior to circumcision immediately following a feeding; a stress-circumcision hour immediately following the operation; and a recovery hour after the next feeding following circumcision. They classed the state of the infants in four categories of wakefulness and two types of sleep: Fussy Cry; Wakeful Activity; Alert Inactivity; and Drowsy; and Active REM Sleep and Quiet non‑REM Sleep.

They found that total wakefulness increased during the stress‑circumcision period characterized by fussy crying. The recovery hour was characterized by drowsiness. No significant changes in active REM or quiet non‑REM sleep were noted in any period.

However, they do point out that Emde's study observed the infants over longer periods of time. This may account for the differences in their observations. Additionally the infants in Emde's study were circumcised with the Plasti‑bell, while the infants in Anders and Chalemian's study had it done by a clamp device. The plastic ring and ligature is probably more painful for the infant because the device remains in place. The difference in methods may also account for the differences in behavior. 8.

Talbert, Kraybill, and Potter investigated infants' internal chemical responses to the stress of circumcision. Serum cortisol and cortisone are secreted by the hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal glands, and are generally produced in greater amounts following stressful situations.

Five normal newborn male infants were studied. Before 6 hours of age, heel stick and then circumcision with a Gomco clamp took place. Blood was again obtained at 20 minutes and 40 minutes after circumcision. Cortisol and cortisone levels were measured in all three samples. The average levels prior to circumcision were 5.8 ug/100 mi. of cortisol and 7.3 ug/100 ml. for cortisone. 20 minutes after the operation the respective mean levels rose to 14.7 and 8.5 for the infants. 40 minutes afterwards the levels remained significantly higher.

They conclude that neonates respond to stress with increased output of adrenal corticoids. 9.

Heel sticks are also painful for babies. Therefore one is led to question how might three heel sticks create additional trauma for the infant or affect the results of their study. Also, while I question the ethics of neonatal circumcision, I also question the ethics of using infants as "guinea pigs" in studies like this even if parental consent is obtained.

Richards, Bernal and Brackbill set out to investigate possible gender differences between male and female babies. Such studies when conducted in the United States found newborn boys to be more active and restless, while similar investigations conducted in Europe found no such sex differences. Since infant circumcision is widespread in the U.S. but is rarely done in Europe, they postulated that circumcision, not gender, was responsible for the differences in behavior.

They state:

"...circumcision requires more study in its own right and that it requires description if not control in all neonatal and infancy studies. Our purpose here is to examine the possibility that ... physical insult in the form of male circumcision, has both behavioral and physiological consequences that may have been uniformly misinterpreted by developmental scientists." 10.

More recently Brackbill and Schroder conducted a follow‑up investigation of the correlation between neonatal circumcision and gender differences. They researched 38 other studies which were concerned with gender differences among newborns and included circumcision as a variable. Interestingly the data revealed few significant differences among newborns in any of a large number of categories. Some of the different studies yielded conflicting results.

Brackbill and Schroder do not state what methods of circumcision were employed in these different studies, nor when the operation was performed in relation to birth or to the study itself, nor what other potentially traumatic variables had been recently performed on both male and female infants (such as heel sticks) which could similarly alter their behavior.

A single, more controlled study (if such studies on newborn infants are indeed ethical) accounting for many variables such as the above listed, would reveal more conclusive answers. 11.

If Richard's, Bernal's and Brackbill's first hypothesis is valid this raises yet another question. Could another "complication" of circumcision be less affection, attention, or positive feelings on the part of parents toward their infant? Some have suggested that injury to the infant can stimulate an instinctive rejection reaction by the mother, similar to the way a mother animal is likely to kill or reject her infant if it has been injured. More plausibly and less directly, circumcision may produce a fussier, crankier, less appealing baby who will in turn inspire less parental affection.

The Awareness and Consciousness of the Newborn

Books and publications about infants frequently expound on the sensitivity and awareness of newborns. Ironically these are often the same books that ignore the subject of circumcision or state that the infant feels little or nothing while this part of his body is cut off. Circumcision has truly been a "blind spot" in our thinking.

According to an American Baby Magazine publication:

"The newborn can also avoid pain. If you hurt any part of him, he will withdraw from you if he can. Stroking one leg will make the other cross and push your hand away. If you poke the upper part of his body, his hand comes over to grasp yours. Then he will try to push you away. "These reflexes are not just immediately useful. Your baby's brain stores and learns from all these reflex experiences, building for the future.... "Even more exciting, your baby is a thinking, feeling, being.... "They are also very sensitive to touch and pressure. Touch is almost a language for infants. Skin contact and warmth, especially from mother's body are probably the most potent stimulation for infants in the first few months of life. Like a radar screen picking up vibrations, your baby soaks in your feelings about him from your handling. He can sense rough, inappropriate, or insufficient handling, and he appreciates touch suited to his style." 12.

During the mid‑1970s Dr. Frederick Leboyer's book and film about "Birth Without Violence" have revolutionized our understanding about the feelings and perceptions of infants at the time of birth. Until his ideas became popular people rarely considered the baby's perspective during birth.

Babies were expected to cry and scream when they were born. Lusty, vigorous crying meant a healthy baby and made everyone happy! Although spanking the baby or holding him upside down is less common today than in the past, that has been the standard "Hollywood" image of birth.

With the advent of natural childbirth and husband participation, birth has become a time of celebration. Doctors and delivery room nurses have frequently joined in the festive mood. People would shout out the sex of the baby as soon as it was apparent. The delivery room, which is somewhat of an "echo chamber" to begin with, became full of people cheering and talking noisily. Meanwhile, people are unwrapping equipment and clanging metal things around. It never occurred to anyone that all this racket was frightening or assaulting to the baby.

And delivery rooms have always been filled with bright lights! (After all, the doctor has to see what he is doing!) No one questioned silver nitrate, the caustic burning substance that is placed in baby's eyes in case the mother has gonorrhea. And babies "had" to be washed up, weighed, and roughly jostled around by the nursery personnel! Leboyer has raised our consciousness by telling us:

"Aren't cries always an expression of pain? Isn't it conceivable that the baby is in anguish? What makes us assume that birth is less painful for the child than it is for the mother? And if it is, does anyone care?

"That tragic expression, those tight‑shut eyes, those twitching eyebrows.... That howling mouth, that squirming head trying desperately to find refuge.... Those hands stretching out to us, imploring, begging, then retreating to shield the face‑that gesture of dread.

"Those furiously kicking feet, those arms that suddenly pull downward to protect the stomach. The flesh that is one great shudder....

"Has there ever been a more heartrending appeal?

"And yet this appeal -‑ as old as birth itself -‑ has been misunderstood, has been ignored, has simply gone unheard....

"What makes being born so frightful is the intensity, the boundless scope and variety of the experience, its suffocating richness.

"People say‑and believe‑that a newborn baby feels nothing. He feels everything. Everything ‑- utterly, without choice or filter or discrimination.

"Birth is a tidal wave of sensation, surpassing anything we can imagine. A sensory experience so vast we can barely conceive of it.... The baby's senses are at work. Totally.

"They are sharp and open -‑ new.... These sensations are not yet organized into integrated, coherent perceptions. Which makes them all the stronger, all the more violent, unbearable -‑ literally maddening....

"What about its sense of touch?

"Its skin‑thin, fine, almost without a protective surface layer‑is as exposed and raw as tissue that has suffered a burn. The slightest touch makes it quiver.... Newborn babies arrive in our world as if on a carpet of thorns. They'll adapt to it. By withdrawing into themselves, by deadening their senses. But when they first land on these thorns, they howl. Naturally. And idiots that we are, we laugh....

"Unhappiness is so ingrained in most babies by this time that they can hope for nothing else. If someone approaches, they tremble even more.

"And then we see an extraordinary thing: when the tears and the gasping and the pain become too much, the infant flees.... The baby disappears into itself. Doubles up again ... symbolically, it has taken itself back into the womb.... When it is no longer able to cry, it collapses. Sinks into sleep. Its only refuge. Its only friend." 13.

Leboyer has essentially made the same observation that was made by Emde and his associates, but in a different manner.

Leboyer advocates treating the infant with a great deal of gentleness and respect immediately following birth. He replaces the harsh glaring light with dim lighting, and the typical loud noises during birth are replaced with soft voices and as little sound as possible. Following birth the infant is placed on its mother's abdomen and gently massaged.

Prior to Leboyer's philosophy no one had ever given any thought to when the cord was cut. But Leboyer advocates delaying cutting of the cord:

"If the cord is severed as soon as the baby is born, this brutally deprives the brain of oxygen. The alarm system thus alerted, the baby's entire organism reacts. Respiration is thrown into high gear as a response to aggression. Everything in the body‑language of the infant‑the immensity of its panic and its efforts to escape ... the act of breathing for a newborn baby, is a desperate last resort.” 14.

He explains his philosophy behind massaging the infant as follows:

"It is through our hands that we speak to the child, that we communicate. Touching is the primary language....

"Immediately we sense how important such contact is, just how important is the way we hold a child. It is a language of skin‑to‑skin‑the skin from which emerge all our sensory organs. And these organs in turn are like window‑openings in the wall of skin that both contains and holds us separate from the world. The newborn baby's skin has an intelligence, a sensitivity that we can only begin to imagine." 15.

Finally he eloquently describes the differences between the baby born to harsh conventional birthing techniques and the baby born non‑violently.

“... Our adventurer is free of fear. He or she has gone from change to change, from one discovery to the next, so slowly, so surrounded and enveloped in love and attention, that everything that happens is accepted with confidence and happiness....

"We are touching on mysteries now. This is a grace which radiates in silence that crowns with a halo every child who arrives among us....

"Curiously, during the final moments, all newborn babies are alike. For a brief period, it is still as if they had no identity at all.... It is simply that they all wear the same mask. The depersonalizing mask of terror. And it is only when this mask falls away that we discover the individual beneath ... there are no ugly babies. Only those deformed by fear....

"The baby has a miraculous sureness in understanding us. The baby knows everything. Feels everything.

"The baby sees into the bottom of our hearts, knows the color of our thoughts. All without language.

"The newborn baby is a mirror reflecting our image. It is for us to make its entrance into the world a joy." 16.

Leboyer's book has sold widely. Within the past few years many parents have attempted to use his techniques when giving birth. Unfortunately many parents have been interested in Leboyer techniques only to find their doctors and local hospitals indifferent about it and unwilling to change.

Leboyer presents his ideas as a poet and not as a scientist. Because what he says is not presented as cold, hard statistics, documented "facts," and research involving thousands, many medical professionals have not been able to relate to it. Also, doctors have not been able to observe any concrete, measurable, long‑term health or developmental differences among babies born by the Leboyer method. (At least among those born to hospital "token" Leboyer techniques.) Therefore many consider it of no value. Why can't the practice of treating babies with gentleness and respect be of value in and of itself?!

What has been even more disturbing is that a number of doctors and hospitals have tried to "do" the Leboyer "method," without approaching it out of true consciousness and caring for the feelings of the infant. "The Leboyer Method" can be a great source of publicity for a hospital. Newspapers do features on it. Hospital staff do public presentations on it for their clientele. For many it has become a fad. In some hospitals the people involved will dim the lights, massage the baby, perhaps immerse the infant in a warm bath, and follow this peaceful routine for about 15 minutes. It makes a great show -‑ the latest "in" thing to do. But after that, the baby is whisked off to the nursery where he is jostled around, weighed, measured, exposed to bright lights, silver nitrate placed in his eyes, and if he is male his foreskin is cut off. Many doctors who have gained a lot of public recognition for offering "the Leboyer method" are regularly circumcising the same babies that they have helped into the world by "non‑violent techniques!" Many parents are requesting the Leboyer method and signing circumcision papers at the same time! Where is our consciousness and awareness? We have not learned anything about the nature and well‑being of the infant. We have merely adopted another fad! Leboyer techniques are worthless if they are done without sensitivity, caring, and genuine concern for the baby's feelings. We must apply that same consciousness and caring for choosing to leave our sons intact. For within the next decade, for many parents, not having one's son circumcised will become the next "fad," the next "in thing to do." Although anti‑circumcision activists consider each infant boy with an intact penis a “victory" in our cause, it must be seen that as advantageous as a foreskin may be, the choice will be worth little if it is not chosen out of love and genuine concern for the infant's well‑being.

Joseph Chilton Pearce in his magnificent, eye‑opening book Magical Child, presents more ideas which complement Leboyer's message, giving us further insight into what the infant experiences following conventional birth:

"The semidrugged, overstressed, and exhausted infant is, of course, generally unable to get his/her breath, even if given ample time to do so. The many new, unused coordinates of muscles are confused and malfunctioning. His/her body is reacting only; all synchronous interactions have long since been destroyed. In addition to his/her prolonged body fear of oxygen deprivation, when s/he is finally sucked or clawed out of the mother, his/her entry is into a noisy, brilliantly lit arena of masked creatures and humming machines. (The hum of fluorescent lighting alone is an overload, much less fluorescence itself, which, as the world's greatest authority on lighting, John Ott, makes perfectly clear, is disastrous to infants.) Suction devices are rammed into the mouth and nose, the eyelids peeled back to that blinding, painful light and far more painful chemicals dropped into the open eyes. S/he is held by the heels and beaten on the back or subjected to a mechanical respirator; at this critical oxygen-short period, the umbilical cord has been cut. S/he is cleaned up a bit from the blood of the episiotomy ... placed on cold, hard scales to be weighed like any other piece of meat in a factory; wrapped up ... ; bundled off to a nursery crib, screaming in pain and terror if s/he is lucky; or rushed semiconscious and half dead to an incubator, far worse fate than a crib, if s/he is less lucky.

"What the infant actually learns at birth is what the process of learning is like. S/he has moved from a soft, warm, dark, quiet and totally nourishing place into a harsh sensory overload. S/he is physically abused, violated in a variety of ways, subjected to specific pain and insult, all of which could still be overcome, but s/he is then isolated from his/her mother.... The failure to return to the known matrix sets into process a chain reaction from which that organism never fully recovers. All future learning is affected. The infant body goes into shock. The absorbant mind shuts down. There will be little absorption again because there is only trauma and pain to be absorbed. The infant then surely exhibits only two states..., 'quiescence,' which means semi‑ to full unconsciousness, and 'unpleasure.' If awakened from his/her survival retreat from consciousness, s/he is propelled back into a state of unresolved high stress. S/he cries him/herself to sleep again.... Pleasure and smiling will surely be much later in appearing, just about two and a half months later, because it will take that long for this unstimulated and isolated body to compensate if it is to survive at all. The infant's body must manage slowly to bring its own sensory system to life, get that reticular formation functioning, and come fully alive through whatever occasional physical nurturing it gets. Stage‑specific processes, once missed, must be laboriously rebuilt.

"...In nearly all cases, the doctors circumcise the male infant on the second or third day of life. They cut off the foreskin of his penis, nearly always without anesthetic.After all, the infant‑suffering excessive stress, in a state of shock, and all too often with a crippled reticular formation‑seems to be a vegetable, so why not treat him as one? ... If the infant is not already in a complete state of shock before the operation, he certainly will be afterward, as parents would be if they were to observe and comprehend what is happening.... Ask your doctor, though, and he will scathingly dismiss criticisms, reassure you that it's perfectly all right, and make you feel rather stupid for even asking.” 17.

1 am not certain whether I believe all of what writers such as Leboyer or Pearce have to say. Much of it is speculative. No one has any way of definitely knowing what an infant truly feels. But much of what is now being learned about the infant's perception during birth has been based on people's own recollections that surface during therapy such as primal therapy. Others who refute its validity claim that one may not be re-experiencing events the way they actually happened, or that people are simply fabricating what they tell. However, critics of such findings are probably defensive about their own involvement in birth or infant circumcision.

Anyone who has only experienced or observed conventional birth within a hospital might readily dismiss these ideas as too "fantastic" or "strange" to be considered. "But this is a perfectly nice, cute little baby! There's nothing wrong with him!" Following the births of Eric and Jason in hospitals I didn't go out the door thinking "Wow! This baby is really traumatized!"

But, after having given birth at home using dim lighting, soft voices, immediate body contact, and treating the baby with only gentleness and love, I can verify that there is a profound and dramatic difference in the nature of the baby born in this manner, compared to the baby born by conventional techniques. The baby is more peaceful and contented and will smile blissfully during his first few days of life when he has been welcomed into the world knowing only warmth and gentleness. His eyes will open and look around immediately after birth when they are not assaulted with glaring lights or burning chemicals.

This explains why in my experience, Eric's and Jason's circumcisions shortly after their births in hospitals did not impress me as being traumatic, while the same operation performed on Ryan following his peaceful home birth was so horrible! The baby born to conventional birthing procedures is in a state of trauma anyway -- whether he is circumcised or not!

This explains why some babies do not cry or appear to react when their foreskins are clamped and sliced off. The baby is already in a state of withdrawal, simply from other common traumatic procedures associated with conventional birth. (An analogy can be drawn by the experience of having one's blood drawn ‑- generally an unpleasant sensation for most people. If one is to have one's blood drawn when one is healthy, such as during a routine check‑up, the experience usually stands out as extremely painful. The same person, while recovering from surgery or following a severe injury, may only be scarcely aware of someone drawing his blood.) In some cases infants have still been under sedation from drugs given to the mother during labor, and therefore have been partially anesthetized for circumcision.

Another explanation for the absence of crying during circumcision is that for some babies the shock of the assault is so intense that they cannot cry! (A personal experience supporting this is based on my husband's past experience as a lab technologist. One of his most unpleasant tasks was to do routine PKU heel sticks on newborns. A heel stick is painful although less intense than circumcision. He has done hundreds of heel sticks on newborns and has never seen a case in which the infant did not cry!)

Medical professionals have simply not been "tuned in" to the feelings of newborns. They work day in and day out, seeing hundreds of parents and babies every year, and forgetting about most of them. Most births are "routine" (if birth should ever be "routine!") and the mothers and babies go home healthy. The constant turnover of patients quickly fades into a blur.

I have repeatedly tried to direct the concept of the consciousness and awareness of newborn babies and the significance of trauma to medical professionals and to other parents only to receive looks of uncomprehension. For most people have never seen an untraumatized newborn and have no understanding of what this means. They fail to perceive their babies in the hospital nursery, under the glaring lights with eyes burned by silver nitrate and recently cut genitals as traumatized because this is the only type of baby that they have ever seen. They have no basis for comparison. For the truly untraumatized newborn infant is something truly precious and rare.

Is There a Relationship Between Circumcision and Sudden infant Death Syndrome?

Every year thousands of apparently healthy infants are put to bed and never wake up. This tragedy is called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, abbreviated as "SIDS," and commonly called "Crib Death." The parents are wrought with severe grief and guilt. The cause of SIDS is still uncertain. A plethora of theories have been proposed.

More male infants than female infants succumb to SIDS. For this reason, some anti‑circumcision activists have suggested that perhaps circumcision leads to SIDS. Could the trauma of circumcision as remembered in the infant brain, be the reason, or a contributing factor, that would make a small percentage of babies give up and stop living? If this theory were to be proven true, dramatic results would follow. Few parents would choose circumcision for their infants if there was a strong possibility that the operation would endanger his life. Potential victims would be spared by virtue of not having experienced circumcision. However, considerable research is necessary before the answers will be known. Although numerous detailed studies have attempted to solve the tragedy of SIDS, to the best of my knowledge none have ever considered circumcision as a variable. It is hoped that researchers will investigate this in the future.

The following information is worthy of noting:

SIDS rarely occurs during the immediate recovery period following circumcision. Most circumcised infants undergo the operation during the first few days of life, but SIDS rarely occurs before age 1‑2 months, and is most frequent between the ages of 2 and 4 months. Perhaps what has given some people the idea that circumcision may cause SIDS is the fact that there have been infants who have bled to death or succumbed to severe infections following circumcision. These tragedies, however, are not SIDS.

Although more male than female infants do succumb to SIDS, many, many girl infants are also victims of the tragedy. According to Valdes‑Dapena, approximately 58‑59% of SIDS victims are male and 41‑42% are female. Therefore, circumcision cannot be isolated as a sole cause of the tragedy. 18.

If circumcision were a significant factor in SIDS it would stand to reason that the rates of its occurrence would be dramatically higher in countries such as the United States or Israel where infant circumcision is common than in other countries where the operation is not practiced. However, the distribution of the various rates of SIDS throughout various parts of the world shows no apparent correlation.

According to Valdes‑Dapena, specific studies of the occurrence of SIDS report that the lowest rates have appeared in Sweden -‑ 0.06 per 1,000; Israel ‑ 0.31 per 1,000; Netherlands -‑ 0.42; and Czechoslovakia -‑ 0.8. While circumcision is not practiced in Sweden, the Netherlands, or Czechoslovakia, the operation is nearly universal for infant males born in Israel.

The middle rates on the list ranged from 1.55 per 1,000 in California to 2.32 in King County, Washington. The areas represented include various U.S. cities (with most males circumcised); Great Britain (with very few circumcised); and Australia and New Zealand (with less than 50 % circumcised). 18.

The highest rates appear in Western Australia‑2.5 per 1,000 (less than half circumcised); Great Britain‑2.78 (very few circumcised); Ireland‑2.8 (none circumcised); and Ontario, Canada‑3.0 (about half circumcised). 18.

The above studies can only be considered estimates. The individual circumcision status of the victims involved, and even the male‑female ratio, are not noted. Studies making note of the above statistics are confined to specific places and times. The data was collected during the early 1970s and was usually confined to one year. Statistics revealing the continuous rates of SIDS in specific areas over a period of years would be more informative.

The breakdown of the rates of SIDS among various ethnic/racial groups within the United States appears not to indicate a correlation with circumcision, for the rates are considerably higher among our racial "minority" groups than among the "white middle class" although the latter tend to choose circumcision to a greater extent than the former. SIDS occurs at a rate of 5.93/1,000 among American Indians; 2.92 among Blacks; 1.74 among Hispanics, 1.32 among whites, and .51 among Orientals. 17. Again, however, specific data for the circumcision status of the victims may reveal different findings.

Positive correlations have been noted between SIDS and many other factors. The tragedy occurs more frequently among infants of younger mothers, single mothers, and mothers seeking no prenatal care. Bottle-fed babies, babies born prematurely, and babies of mothers who smoke are all at somewhat greater risk. Prenatal nutrition and general health of the mother appear to be important factors. However, babies who have been full term, breastfed, and born to healthy, non‑smoking mothers have also been SIDS victims. No one factor appears to be universal.

Many believe that some infants are somehow born susceptible to SIDS. The question is posed that the trauma of circumcision, as remembered in the infant brain, could be a factor that could "tip the scale" for an infant who is already vulnerable to SIDS. If this is true, perhaps leaving that infant intact could mean the difference between life and death.

One anti‑circumcision activist has speculated the following on the subject:

"During the trauma of the circumcision operation the infant often stops breathing because of the extreme pain. This lack of oxygen, though not fatal at the time, does damage the lowermost part of the brain that controls the semi‑automatic functions such as heartbeat, breathing and swallowing. For several months after the operation the baby will often stop breathing for as long as 30 seconds while asleep. The medical term for this temporary suspension of breathing is called "apnea" and these apnea episodes cause further damage to the breathing control mechanism. Finally the infant stops breathing altogether and he dies.” 19.

It must be emphasized that these ideas are not proven. Further research must be done in this area.

Parents who lose an infant to SIDS experience incredible grief and remorse. Frequently they torment themselves by painstakingly going over every detail of the baby's life, agonizing over what they may have done wrong. Often such parents need professional therapy to recover from the tragedy. Such parents, if their child happened to be a circumcised baby boy, may, upon hearing our speculations, blame themselves for having allowed him to undergo the operation. Therefore, anti-circumcision activists are admonished to be careful so as not to needlessly add to these parents' grief. It is easy to become so caught up in one cause as to ignore people's feelings in other areas. SIDS parents can, of course, consider leaving a future son intact for any of the known advantages of not circumcising. But if they are in the throes of grief, they must be reassured that it is not known whether or not circumcision contributes to SIDS.

Conclusions

Most parents try to do everything that they believe will be beneficial to their infants and children. And they constantly experience guilt, frustration and exasperation as new idea after new idea comes along telling them to do things yet another way. As I write this I can envision other parents in kindred spirit crying "Just when I thought I was doing everything right, somebody comes along telling us that we've done something terribly wrong!!"

In 1972 when I was expecting my first child I was full of ideals and philosophies of how I would do everything right when raising my children. Today I have six children.(As of this re-editing in 2000, the oldest four are now adults.) I recall days when I felt that I was doing my best if I couldget everybody into shoes that matched! I have seen many of my ideals "go down the drain," yet in total perspective, raising children has been a positive experience.

How important is a child's circumcised or intact penis in perspective of all that will be important in his life? I frequently have found myself caught up in a dilemma of perspective as I have worked on this manuscript, concentrating on traumas inflicted on infants, while meanwhile one or more of my children is crying or needing my immediate attention. What began in part out of personal need to resolve my own remorse over the trauma that my babies suffered has, over the years, grown into an expression of my need for intellectual fulfillment.

The trauma of the circumcision operation and lifelong deprivation of one's foreskin cannot be denied or dismissed as insignificant. We cannot afford to ignore the importance of events that surround the beginning of life. However, those of us who specialize in birth often tend to become so caught up in the importance of birth related events that we forget that the rest of our children's lives are equally important. In perspective, I do believe that many other things are more important in a child's life. I undertook this research in part because I saw a dire need for information on circumcision. Other concerns such as nutrition, breastfeeding, early childhood education, etc. are already being given attention by many other people.

So many factors contribute to the ultimate psychological makeup of an individual, that it is extremely difficult to know how any one isolated event has affected him. Despite all of my knowledge, I have no way of knowing how my own sons are affected today by the painful operation that they underwent during infancy.As children they were healthy, usually happy, and seemingly oblivious to their lack of foreskins.Their younger brother, who has been left intact, came along in 1985.Although they all would tease and pester each other as much as any normal siblings, I have never heard the subject of foreskins or lack of same mentioned.Now that my three older sons are adult young men, the issue is too painful and personal for me, as their mother, to bring up to them directly, even thought they are well aware of my life work in this field.I have maintained a close, loving and communicative relationship with all of my children in practically all respects, but this issue lies too close to my heart to touch.

Being wanted, and provided the opportunity to grow up in a happy, loving family are of primary importance in the life of a child. Undoubtedly many little boys who have been abandoned and unwanted have also happened to have intact penises. Therefore, the choice against circumcision will only be relevant if considered within the context of love and acceptance, and of wanting what is best for the child in his life.

Shawn's Circumcision

Shawn was born in August of 1972 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I had a short labor

and a fairly untraumatic birth -- as much as can be expected in a hospital. I had natural childbirth and an unnecessary 3rd degree episiotomy. Shawn weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. and was 21 inches long. I remember looking at his penis and thinking how strange it looked. (I'd never seen an uncircumcised baby before.) It took me two days to get up the courage to ask the nurse if my baby was "OK" and if his penis was "normal." She laughed and assured me they all looked that way and that he'd look "normal" after he was circumcised. I repeatedly asked the doctor if it would hurt Shawn and he repeatedly said "no," and that "it was better to do it now when it will heal quickly." So I signed the paper to have it done.

On the third day after his birth I decided to take a look at Shawn in the nursery.

As I walked down the hall I heard him screaming. I rushed to the nursery and knocked on the window. The nurse came to the door and I asked where he was. She said "He's across the hall being circumcised." The next few minutes were a living hell, an eternity of torture as I listened to him scream as I have never heard anyone scream before or since. I wanted to burst through the door and say "Stop! Stop!" But I didn't know what they were doing or how long it would take. Finally the doctor came out.

"Is he all right?!" I asked in panic.

"You have a very strong little boy there," he said. "It took three nurses to hold him down. He did not like what we did

to him at all, but he'll be fine."

A nurse brought him to me and I took him to my room. I told him I was sorry and that I didn't know it would hurt him so badly. He nursed and fell asleep. We went home from the hospital the next day. He healed and I didn't think much about it again.

Then a year and a half later, when Shawn was 19 months old, the real problems began.Shawn awakened screaming in his bed!!He flung himself and thrashed and screamed and repeatedly was brought to a position of a crucifix as if someone was holding him down.I could not wake or comfort him.He screamed for 45 minutes and then fell back to sleep.I was horrified.I had never experienced anything like this before.The next morning he did not remember anything.He went through this same thing about once a week for two years.Times varied from 30 minutes to 1 ½ hours, but always the same high-pitched screaming thrashing, and as he became older and more verbal he began saying, "No, no, no! !", holding his genitals, and then as if someone was holding him down, he would fling himself into the circumcision position and struggle there. Then he'd break loose of the imaginary hold, grab his penis, and scream "No, no, no!!" again. Back and forth he would go until he'd finally give up and go to sleep. He wouldn't let us comfort him. After a while we found that if he needed to urinate the screaming would last longer and if we could get him to go to the bathroom he'd usually fall asleep after that. He started doing it about once a month when he was 3 1/2. Since he was 5 he has only done it about two times a year. He still does not consciously know he has ever done this. We have told him about it in detail and he cannot remember having these experiences. He does have nightmares occasionally and he will remember these the next day. We can awaken him after a bad dream and comfort him. This other thing that he does is not dreaming.

When Shawn was 2 1/2I spoke with Arthur Janov at a Birth/Rebirth Conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. I described Shawn's behavior to him. He agreed that it was a typical circumcision trauma. He said to let him scream it out, to comfort him as much as one could, but not to worry, he would outgrow it.

When our second son, Peter, was born in 1979, my husband Jim and I had a hearty discussion about whether or not to have him circumcised. Jim felt concern that Peter wouldn't "match" him and Shawn. I couldn't believe that after all we'd been through, he'd even consider it! So I got out articles pro and con -- O.B. texts, pediatric books, Mothering Magazine articles -- for him to read. I told him that after he knew as much about it as I did I would then discuss it and if he still wanted to get it done I would agree. He never mentioned the subject again. Peter is still intact. I think men have a very difficult time dealing with this whether they admit it or not.

Vicki Campbell

Las Cruces, N.M.

One Man's Story

I was born in a hospital in Colorado and was circumcised there. Because my mother left the hospital the day after I was born, I must have been circumcised within 24 hours of being born. My mother tells me that I was an unusual baby because I slept so frequently. I fell asleep instantly whenever she changed my diaper or whenever she placed me in bath water. Believing that there was something wrong with me, my mother took me to her doctor. He gave me a clean bill of health. I believe that this was a conditioned response to circumcision trauma.

I grew up on a farm and while I was a pre-schooler we had a cow which provided milk for our family. When I was three years old, my mother purchased a cream separator from an older couple. I recall that they were very friendly and that they doted on me when we went to pick up the cream separator. The separator consisted two pieces of machinery that I remember vividly: a black cast iron apparatus in the shape of a goose neck and a stainless steel basin.

The night after we purchased it I had a nightmare. I had the same nightmare again and again for several weeks. In my dream I am strapped to a black table, unable to move. I am naked. Between my legs, the black gooseneck apparatus of the cream separator is clamped to the edge of the table. To my right is a shiny, steel basin. The old woman who sold us the cream separator looms over my face. She smiles and tweaks my cheeks. I remember her big teeth. Behind her is her husband. He has a knife in his hand. He slices off part of my penis. He is emotionless. I do not feel pain, but anger, nausea and powerlessness. I am especially angry with the woman. How can she be smiling while I am being butchered? I try to kick away the knife, but I cannot. I am simply incapable of making my muscles do what I want them to do. I wake up feeling nauseous.

This is the earliest dream I can recall, and the picture remains vivid in my mind to this day.

I am told that our dreams are merely our brains' attempt to make sense of random electrical impulses. I am also told that infants cannot truly see anything because their eyes are unable to focus immediately after birth.However, I cannot get over the striking resemblance between a Gomco clamp and the black gooseneck of my mother’s cream separator.And why does the stainless steel basin – ever present at all circumcision – fit so prominently into my dream?I believe that my circumcision produced an electrical pattern in my brain that was something less than random, a template of sorts waiting for the right environmental objects to give it shape.

I believe that if parents are present during the circumcision of their son, they should not be within his sight. I do not believe that the presence of parents would be comforting or reassuring to the baby. He might believe, instead, that his parents are responsible for the act. He cannot understand their words or accurately interpret their facial expressions or gestures. In my dream, I believe that the smiling woman who distracts me and tweaks my cheeks is responsible for my being butchered. The message is confusing and not to be trusted.

I do not blame my parents for what happened to me. I believe that they chose to have me circumcised thinking that they were doing something good for me. My father was not circumcised. Perhaps he believed he was giving me an advantage he didn't have. I believe that I did have some problems identifying with my father because we were different.

It is ironic that today one of the arguments for circumcision is that the boys, if left intact, might have trouble identifying with their circumcised fathers. Why didn't physicians think of that in the 'fifties, 'forties and 'thirties (when most fathers were not circumcised)? With the practice originating so recently, the identification problem must have occurred in every family at one time or another.

(Name and address withheld by request)

Dr. Justin Call,M.D, Psychoanalyst, Pediatrician, Child Psychiatrist, Professor in Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine

Dr. Call: As a pediatrician and as an intern in a hospital I used to do circumcisions. I was taught that the best time to do a circumcision was right at birth in the delivery room. It was a matter of convenience.

Rosemary: Why has neonatal circumcision become a routine procedure in U.S. hospitals?

C: Nobody can tell you what the scientific indications are for circumcision. With armies traveling in a desert, if the males are circumcised, they have fewer infections and swellings of the foreskin than individuals who have not been circumcised. This is under unhygienic, hot conditions. The other reason is the religious ritual.

R: What do you think about pain and trauma experienced by the infant during circumcision?

C: If you ask the question "Does the baby feel pain1" You bet he feels pain!! The helpless, panicky cry of an infant when circumcised is an abnormal kind of cry. It is a breathless, high-pitched cry that is never heard in other normally occurring circumstances. Then sometimes babies who are being circumcised do exactly the opposite. They lapse into a semi-coma. Both of these states, helpless crying and semi-coma are abnormal states in the newborn.

R: The semi-coma state must explain why some babies don't cry while being circumcised. This makes people assume that it didn't hurt the baby.

C: That's right. Also people don't distinguish between that high-pitched, panicky, breathless cry and a normal loud cry. And people don't make the distinction between sleep and semi-coma. A very interesting study was done by Dr. Robert Emde and Dr. David Metcalf (et al) * at the University of Colorado Medical Center. They studied the sleep-wakefulness cycles of infants in relation to circumcision. They found that in the 24 hours following circumcision, a great deal more time was spent by the infant in a state of subdued sleep...withdrawal. This is the opposite of what people would expect.

R: What about using anesthesia for circumcising babies? ''C:'' Administering anesthesia to a child is a risky procedure.Doctors would love not to use it if they could get away with it.Also they prefer not to use a local anesthetic because it swells the tissues.They can get a better closure of the tissues if they’re not swollen. The rationale for circumcision that some doctors give is phimosis.This means thatthe foreskin cannot be drawn back beyond the edge of the glans.This is uncommon in the naturally occurring event when one does nothing about the foreskin.Phimosis** is normal in the newborn.The foreskin will naturally loosen and become easily drawn back by the time the child is a few years old. The operation of clipping the skin under the tongue to correct "tongue tie" used to be a popular procedure. Many doctors thought that the tongue should be able to protrude fully beyond the mouth. It has now been shown that the tongue lies in the mouth cavity and does not protrude in the newborn, but normally as the child grows older it will That operation is rarely done any more. ''R:'' I have interviewed a mother whose son was circumcised at age three. She said his foreskin had started to grow back over the head of his penis so that he was having difficulty urinating. I wonder if his case could have been treated differently. ''C: ''Usually phimosis can be treated successfully without circumcision or surgery of any kind. I don't know the child's circumstances. I don't recommend that any attention be paid to the foreskin until it loosens easily.After that the mother should draw it back occasionally to clean it.*** I haveknown that some mothers develop an obsession ... a highly exciting sexual ritual around the drawing back of the baby's foreskin several times a day. So it can definitely be overdone! ''R:'' Apart from the immediate painful effects, how do you think the trauma of circumcision affects the individual throughout his life? " ''C''<nowiki>: Some people have thought that circumcision is the first real castration and subsequent castration anxiety borrows some of its power from the earlier experience of circumcision. I don't know if that theory has any validity.

But in the immediate newborn period, I believe that circumcision has a disruptive effect on the development of the mother-infant bond, because of the changes in the state of the infant. This interferes with the mother-infant bond just as medication would.The bond has been disrupted. .

* Emde, Robert N., M.D.; </span>Harmon, Robert J., M.D.; Metcalf, David, M.D.; Koenig, Kenneth L., M.D.; and Wagonfeld, Samuel, M.D.

“Stress and Neonatal Sleep"

Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol. 33, No.6, Nov.-Dec. 1971, p. 491-497.

** “Phimosis" is actually an incorrect term for the normally tight, adherent foreskin of the newborn. "Phimosis" should only be applied to the abnormally tight or adherent foreskin of an older individual.</nowiki>

*** NOCIRC and most other knowledgeable sources on correct care of the intact genitals now recommend that the newborn’s foreskin be left entirely alone during infancy and early childhood until it naturally loosens of its own accord.

Tonya Brooks

(Tonya is the president and founder of the Association for Childbirth at Home, International, Los Angeles, CA. She worked on her Ph.D. in psychology with research done in early developmental psychology and development of infants. She is a lay midwife, and the mother of six children, five of whom were born at home.

f'our of her children are sons who have been left intact..)

Tonya: I have assisted with nine circumcisions of infant sons of parents whose births I had attended. The doctor believed that babies did better if someone was holding them. I had to lean over them and hold their legs prone. It took my whole body to hold down a newborn for circumcision.

Rosemary: It must have been hard for you to watch.

T: Yes. I hated to watch the babies cry. But the hardest thing for me was to watch parents who did not seem to want it done. Twice I've watched the mothers cry. In one case the mother did not want her baby circumcised, but her husband did. It was extremely unfortunate that she who was taking the responsibility for it questioned the decision, and he, who wanted it done, wasn't even there. I have rarely seen a mother who wanted circumcision.

My feeling against circumcision is that it is the child's body and you have to grant everyperson a "beingness."

R: Would you say that your experiences with circumcisions have been quite traumatic?

T: I was bothered intellectually by it. But I've watched parents become traumatized. My concern is that babies have undifferentiated pain responses. They feel pain all over their bodies. I think it is more traumatic for babies to be circumcised within a few hours after birth. If you watch babies who have had easy births, their faces don't look like they're pained. Babies who have had difficult births...you can tell by looking at them that they have been in pain. If you take a traumatized baby and subject him to circumcision, you're more likely to get a problem. You should at least wait until the baby has had a chance to be loved and calmed down before having a circumcision. Just because a baby has less differentiated pain response does not mean that it is less traumatic for him than it would be for someone older. It just seems less traumatic to adults because they don't cry as long.

R: Sometimes when babies are circumcised they really scream.Other times they don’t make much noise.I wonder now if they retreat into themselves following a traumatic birth and are unable to cry out when they are circumcised.

T: When a person is injured, he can react in one of two ways.He can yell!This is a more pro-survival response than the kind of injury in which the person is so traumatized that he can’t cry out.Have you ever closed your hand in a car door and it hurt so badly that you couldn’t yell?In four of the nine circumcisions that I have seen, the baby didn't cry. He just seemed to be suddenly in a state of shock! That's always easier on the parents because we expect crying to be a measure of pain.

R: We have had baby goats disbudded with the cauterizing iron burning the horn bud out of the animal's skull. Our friends who do this have observed that if the animal is a pet, if it has gotten a lot of loving from humans, then it will scream when is being disbudded. But if it has not been a pet, it will just stand there and take it. I find that intriguing.

T: To be able to cry out is better. What you describe doesn't mean that it's less traumatic for the goats who haven't been loved, it's more. The pet goats are more able to communicate pain. So that may explain why some babies don't cry in response to being circumcised. I have seen babies so socked into it that they've been almost unconscious. I would feel more comfortable about a baby that cried than one who didn't. It's harder on the parents because screaming drives home the fact that the child has been injured, but the response is healthier for the child.

R: Some babies start to scream as soon as they are strapped to the circumcision board. Some babies scream when they're just being examined. So sometimes trauma not connected to pain at all, but being held down and invaded and "messed with."

T: A baby that has just been born has gone from a warm, enclosed environment out into the cold, with bright lights, and they're put on a table and stretched out. That's traumatic. It's an assault on his person. That's one of the reasons I want parents to control births, so they can pick that baby up in their arms and not have anyone else mess with their baby.

R: What do you believe about the lasting effect of circumcision trauma?

T: I believe that trauma has a cumulative effect. I would like to keep my children from having as many injuries as possible. I guess it is very individualistic. Trauma during infancy may cause a child to be less responsive and more introspective. Things can be done about that. An extreme example would be a child who has been abused. I suppose that if a child was simply circumcised as an infant, he could grow without any problems, but there are later traumas. Possibly if a child was circumcised as an infant and the injury was so traumatic that he buried it in his subconscious, and then the first time he wanted to make love he'd have difficulty. I doubt that that would happen.

R: I have wondered about the way my first son, Eric, screamed every time his diaper was changed when he was a newborn.This kept up for three weeks.I wonder it if was like operant conditioning.He was circumcised the first time his diaper was ever taken off, so he imprinted on the idea of “pants taken off --- this part of me uncovered --- pain!!”It took several diaper changes, long after the wound itself had healed, for that behavior to be unlearned.

T: Every person has an conscious, analytical mind, and a reactive or subconscious mind that controls memory banks. The subconscious is the conditioned response part of the mind, where your habits are. This is where you react without reasoning. If you have been in a car accident, the first time you drive again you react with fear every time somebody comes at you.

R: Circumcision is a form of body alteration.. What do you think? Do parents really have the right to alter their children’ s bodies In this manner?

T: I wouldn't assume to alter someone else's body unless it were needed physiologically. If a baby had a birth defect that could be corrected by cosmetic surgery, I would not hesitate. I suppose if I or my husband had been Jewish we would have had our sons circumcised. I would supersede if my child would be ostracized culturally. .

R: It is very hard to question ones own culture.

T: I have become increasingly less tolerant of cultural influences. One's culture has to be a consideration, but parents should give more consideration to this child in presenttime and what his life is going to be like. If the family is deeply involved in Judaism, went to Temple faithfully, their son would later have a Bar Mitzvah, then I suppose they should have the Bris. But otherwise people should really think about it.I know of one family whose little boy asked to be circumcised at age 6.

R: It was his decision. '

T: Yes. If it hurts, it's not going to affect him traumatically because it was his decision. If any of my boys asks to be circumcised when he gets older, I'll let him get circumcised.

R: What would you say to parents if it's after the fact...whether they had a traumatic birth, or a Caesarian, or a prolonged separation from the baby, or a circumcision? With all the ideals we've been striving for, some parents can feel that they’ve failed.

T: The parents should think in present time. They should give that child a lot of emotional support and love … not anything other than good mothering.If the child has a problem I would encourage him to communicate.

R: With our involvement in home birth and our concern about babies have non-traumatic birth --- what are our goals?It is impossible to live in this world without ever feeling pain.

T: The reasons are individualistic, but we should get the baby into this world with as little trauma as possible. Doctors may claim, “Well, it’s not that big of a deal.All of us have been born and we’re all just fine!”But there is evidence that how we're born very definitely affects our emotional and psychological well-being. I have no doubt that severe birth trauma does cause long-term effect. The home birth movement is a commitment to this. Doctors have attacked the home birth movement on medical issues, but they have got to realize that the psychological aspects of birth are every bit as important as the medical ones!

The Primal Institute

Patricia Leis Nicholas, M.A., Assistant Director

E. Michael Holden, M.D., Medical Director

Leslie A. Pam, Ph.D., Associate Director

Rosemary: Would you recommend that parents choose not to have their infant sons circumcised specifically because it causes psychological damage?

Ms. Nicholas: Yes, and also it's going to hurt the baby!

R. But isn’t pain inevitable in life?Even if the child is born by the Leboyer method and never circumcised, there’s no way he can live in this world and not get hurt.He’s going to fall down and skin his knee or clunk his head.

Dr. Holden: It makes a difference whether a person is going to have trauma a few days after he's born, compared to having trauma when he's a little older. The younger a child is, the closer he is to conception, the more open and vulnerable that child is to hurt. So the goal of the parent should be to minimize hurt during infancy.It is correct, of course, that in later childhood, some bumps and bruises are inevitable. But it is not inevitable for an infant.

R: This is part of why infant circumcision is such a scandal! If you were going to circumcise a three-year-old, nobody would strap him down and let him scream and do it to him without anesthesia. Yet, that's the way it is done to newborns! People have thought that newborn babies have no feelings!

H: Actually the opposite is true. Newborn babies have that much more feeling, more sensitivity, and are more vulnerable to pain than older children.

N: Most parents are not aware of what actually goes on during the circumcision procedure.

R: Can you explain what primal therapy is in a few words? What does it do, or prove, or solve?

H: There's a premise for primal therapy which is that neurosis and psychosomatic illnesses in adults are based on pain in childhood.

R: Physical pain and psychological pain?

H: We don't make a distinction between the two because suffering is suffering. Psychological pain is a representation of emotional and physical pain from childhood. Primal therapy is a system devised by Dr. Janov for reversing neurosis. It allows people to complete their total biological healing responses to traumas that happened when they were little, and too vulnerable to finish these healing responses. For example, if a child was very badly hurt and needs to cry for 40 hours, an infant may only be strong enough to cry for an hour. After that he will shut down to that pain. So there's 39 more hours of crying still to go. Primal therapy is the completion of the response to early traumas. It is the completion of the healing sequence.

R: So sometimes you get people that cry for 40 hours? H: Yes, about a single feeling. It is desperately hard, agonized crying.

Dr. Pam: But it's not 40 hours of crying in one sitting!

H: Whether one is a baby or an adult, there is just so much pain that one can tolerate in a given unit of time. Primal therapy is a sequential re-experiencing of hurts to complete these healing sequences in response to early traumas.

P: That's not only in infancy.

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H: That’s right.It can be a trauma from childhood and even teenage years and early adulthood.It can be anything that you have repressed.

R: It’s fascinating that a person can go back and find these things when only rarely can one consciously remember one’s birth, infancy or prenatal days.

H: There’s a reason why the typical person does not remember before age 3 or 4.It’s because there’s so much pain during that time that it’s part of repression.

R: Then if someone had a particularly comfortable birth and infancy they would remember it?

H: That is basically true. If a person had an extremely good birth and a great infancy, they'd tend to remember from about age one or one-and-a-half, rather than from age 4 on. We see patients who will say that they remember nothing before age 12. So the amount of repression varies with the amount of pain.

R: I've had therapy myself, but it was more conventional. Much of it was based onA Guide to Rational Living by Ellis and Your Erroneous Zones by Dyer. I've also had assertiveness training. The basic message of my therapy was "Don't wallow around blaming your parents or blaming the past for your problems. Deal with your life in the present and future." What you do would contradict that.

P: It's just another approach.

R: Then according to primal therapy a person can't just forget past traumas. One has to go back and resolve it.

N: That's right. It's a "resolving" experience rather than a "wallowing" experience.

H: Dr. Janov often makes the point that primal therapy is not for everyone. It is for people who are suffering a great deal. Perhaps other types of therapy have not worked for them. Some people will benefit greatly from other types of therapy. But if a person is really open to their pain of childhood, then primal therapy will be good for them.

P: Primal therapy deals with the causes of neurosis. If you don't have the kind of pain that requires you to go back to the cause, you can patch yourself up.

N: I think anyone can benefit from primal therapy. We get average neurotic people who feel that something's wrong with their life. They have families and successful jobs. They find that our therapy fulfills them. They find something that they lost along the way and then they can experience life more fully.

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R: The way I understand it, usually one cannot derive ones neurosis from one isolated instance of trauma.

N: There is prototypic pain. People will have a certain type of pain and it's compounded by many different experiences that reinforce a particular trauma. When they get the other traumas out of the way, they can focus on the original trauma.

R: It's like something way back that they can't quite reach? That "forgotten" trauma is what causes a certain type of behavior.

H: It can be reached ultimately through primal therapy. There is a sequence of laying down the pain which starts with severe prototypic pain in an individual who is very open. This is continually added to throughout childhood. Primal therapy is that whole process in reverse.

R: What is the difference between a child born by the Leboyer method and one born to bright lights and typical traumatizing hospital procedures? It's a neat type of birth experience to have. But what is the ultimate difference?

H: Have you seen children that were born by the Leboyer method?

R: I gave birth to my own baby that way. He was circumcised 8 days later. I don't know if that "undid" the whole thing. He's a sweet, happy, loving child. So are my other two sons and they were born in typical hospital settings.

N: If you give birth by the Leboyer method, you are eliminating at least some of the trauma that the child would have experienced with bright lights and other circumstances.

R: Have any differences in Leboyer-born children been objectively observed?

H: There is one study that followed 104 children born by the Leboyer method for 9 years. Of those 104, 100 of them were truly ambidextrous. Also, they were not afraid to try new things. That [fear of new experiences]is something quite characteristic of children born conventionally. Thus the transition from in utero to outside appears to have some long-lasting learning value for the child. If that first transition was easy to take, then later transitions are apparently easier to take. Also, one gets the subjective impression that Leboyer-born children are more serene and tranquil than children born by the conventional method. I can see it by the relaxation muscles. They have a placid, almost beatific look to their faces.

P: Being ambidextrous is important because it has to do with brain functions.

H: The left hemisphere for 92% of people becomes the hemisphere in which one is dominant for speech and handedness. But the left hemisphere is also recruited as ~ ' part of the defense against pain. Thus verbal cognitive defenses against pain are very common. That is related to the prominant right-handedness in people. In primal therapy people become more bidextrous. They don't become truly ambidextrous because it is many years later. The implication of true ambidexterity [in Leboyer- born children] is that the left hemisphere did not need to be recruited as a specialized, repressing portion of the brain, in the service of neurosis.. .in the service of keeping one unaware of pain.

R: I can't say that I fully understand that!

N: The first time he explained it to me, I had no idea what he meant!

H: A three-year-old born by the conventional method would be predominantly right-handed, would be extremely verbal, and would be using words to defend against pain. Whereas a Leboyer-born child would be using both hands and would be speaking in a much more feeling way, not to repress pain but to express need. The brain is utilized differently in a person who has been hurt a lot in infancy.

P: You understand that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. So when a person is right-handed, the left side of the brain has a lot of power, energy, and strength, and it's used to repress feelings. Neurologically that's a known fact. That's why people who stutter don't stutter when they sing.Singing and feeling come from the right side of the brain. If someone is ambidextrous there's an equal power on both sides of the brain. Then the person could use his or her left hand equally well.

H: Which is related to feelings, emotions and expressions.

R: What would cause someone to be left-handed?

H: That's not well understood. 85% of people are left-hemisphere dominant for speech and right-handed. 7 1/2 % of people are left-hemisphere dominant for speech and left-handed. That means 92 1/2 % of people are left-hemisphere dominant for speech. Another 1/2 % of people are left-handed and right-hemisphere dominant for speech. There are anatomical differences between the left and right hemispheres. Embryologically the left hemisphere has many more neurons in it than the right hemisphere. Left-handedness can be genetic. It can also evolve in an individual who had impairment early in development, so that the right hemisphere becomes the dominant one.

R: My oldest son is left-handed. My youngest* who was born with Leboyer techniques appears to be solely right-handed. Maybe the circumcision took the other side away from him?

H: It is an important neurological finding that Leboyer-born children tend to be ambidextrous. But I'm not sure that because a person is right-handed or left-handed that they necessarily had a certain kind of pain in childhood. There are other factors which determine handedness.

R: There is a feeling, especially among those of us who espouse such things as natural births, bonding, breastfeeding and such … kind of a prevailing attitude of "You do it exactly this way or you don't quite measure up!" Sometimes pursuing a

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* This interview took place in 1978 after my third child was born.I later gave birth to 3 more children, 2 daughters and another son. Interestingly, my fourth son, born in 1985 and left intact happens to be left handed. Of additional interest, one of my right handed children is left foot dominant. Another one is left eye dominant. Apparently this is a genetic trait from my husband’s side of the family.

CIRCUMCISION: THE PAINFUL DILEMMA

certain method takes priority over the actual needs of the infant. What is resulting is feelings of guilt and failure. Some parents feel "I didn't do right by my child. I have an inferior child because something went wrong." This can result from a Caesarian birth, or medication during birth, or a baby that needed surgery, or the decision to circumcise.

H: Our point of view is not that the child is "inferior but that a child who has had trauma is different than he or she would have been without the trauma. ..

N: I'm a parent too. It's important for parents to realize that the intent is not to hurt the child. Sometimes people don't know the information because nothing has been published. It's like when nobody knew that smoking was harmful.

R: 20 to 30 years ago parents were led to believe that the baby wouldn't breathe right away unless the doctor spanked him!

N: Circumcision is the same kind of thing. H: You can't change what has already happened. But you can allow them to react to pains in the present by letting them express their feelings. Parents can allow their children to express their concern, their upset, their frustration, their anger. '

N: It's important that parents not allow themselves to get too hung up with guilt feelings because that will affect how they relate to that child.

R: What about the baby that has to have necessary traumatic medical procedures? I have spoken to mothers who have had badly jaundiced babies who have had to have several heel sticks. The mothers are worried about the trauma that the baby went through. Should parents seek to avoid procedures such as vitamin K shots, PKU heel sticks, or silver nitrate in the eyes in order to spare the baby the trauma?

H: Some things are medically necessary. In the case of a very jaundiced child, it's important to know the bilirubin count. But circumcision is elective.

N: Severe jaundice can result in permanent brain damage and so can PKU. Circumcision certainly does not fall into the same category.

R: What if parents have a Leboyer birth and have a boy and later have him circumcised? Some people just aren't thinking. Leboyer births have become the latest" fad. People are asking for Leboyer births and signing circumcision papers at the same time. Does the latter "undo" the former?

H: If the birth is benevolent it is a great favor to the child. This has helped the child for a lifetime. But any subsequent trauma is traumatic whether it happens at 8 days, 8 years, or 18 years. It is better to have a Leboyer birth followed by circumcision J than to have a conventional birth followed by circumcision. You don't "undo" a good experience.

R: What are the long-range detrimental effect of circumcision during infancy?

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H: In general there has been an increase in the total burden of pain.

P: It has a completely different meaning and outcome for each person. I'm Jewish and I had the Bris at 8 days. Someone who had it done in the hospital by a doctor shortly after birth would experience it differently.

R: What can you tell me about your recollection of circumcision through primal therapy?

P: I remember being strapped down. I remember the Mohel. I remember several men. They're wearing dark clothes and some of the guys had beards. I see it as a bunch of evil leering monsters who are going to devour me.The feeling was that they were taking something from me. I had something they wanted and they took it from me, and I was totally helpless!!

R: Did you feel pain during the memory?

P: Oh sure! It really wasn't as much physical pain as it was pure abject terror! I mean ... you're this big, you're being strapped down!! The physical sensation isn’t as bad as the psychological effect. The mental image I have is a lot more painful than the actual cutting. They sort of converge on me and the terror is so great that I almost ... I can't feel the physical pain because the mental pain is so great!!

H: The meaning of the trauma is the most painful thing, not the trauma per se.

R: So if you had gotten stuck on your diaper pin, that would have hurt, but it wouldn't have been the same.

P: I think human beings are capable of tolerating a certain amount of physical pain.Like you said, the kid falls down and scrapes his knee. I don't think those things are traumas. It's the meaning that's attached to it that's important. If your father deliberately stuck you with a pin that would be different than if you accidentally got stuck by a pin.

N: However, so many people think that babies don't experience pain when they're circumcised. When I watch people having the re-experience of circumcision, thereis physical pain.

P: The pain that I experienced was afterwards. Initially I was petrified. When they did it to me I could feel the moment and I was completely numb with fear. But as my fear subsided the feeling went right back down here. It just hurt for days until it healed. During the time I was constantly aware that I was hurting, but my feeling is that it has to do with them hurting me and taking something from me. Every time I was aware of that pain, the throbbing and the healing process, I kept seeing this scene, and my body kept going into it! I was just terrified until the pain went away. As long as it took to heal I was in absolute terror and agony … for days.

There are two different parts to the feeling for me. One is the scene of having it happen and one is the aftermath. And the aftermath is just as bad!I could feel something trying to turn me off. Since the pain is there I cannot tolerate the terror in the same intensity that it was first initiated upon me.If it’s 100% terror when it’s happening, the body cannot tolerate that amount of pain. The only thing I could do was to turn off and shut down because the healing process is so painful.

N: But, Leslie, after you experienced and relived this by having the primal, how did you find that insight that what had happened affected your life?

P: Basically I understood why. I had a very strange birth. Then I had the Bris. Later I had my tonsils out. Then I had a hernia operation when I was three. So most of my life I was numb to feelings. I didn't know what the word "feelings" meant. I felt like I went into shock. I've also relived the hernia operation. I can relive the incision but that's not really the pain of it. The part that freaked me out is that my mother took me to the hospital and told me that she wouldn't leave me and that everything would be all right. Then when they went to put me under with the gas, I thought "she sent me here to be killed!"

H: I had a similar experience at age 10. Even for a ten-year-old your mind is not developed enough to realize that this is a service of a medical operation. The child feels that he's being assaulted. A child does not make sense out of a surgical procedure the way an adult would. One of the most important things that the parent can do is to stay with the child during the procedure if he is to remain conscious, or until the anesthesia has taken effect, if he is being put under. R: I'm glad to hear you say this. When my second son Jason was two he had to have some stitches taken in his forehead. The doctor made me leave during the stitching. He said if I stayed there Jason would associate the trauma with me and get mad at me since he wouldn't know why I wasn't rescuing him. H: That's just bullshit!!

R: Does an isolated physically painful experience really cause psychological maladjustment? Is a circumcision during infancy really going to screw somebody up for life?

H: What is relevant is whether a person was able to fully experience and respond to that trauma at any age. If there's some part of the healing reaction left over, it contributes to neurosis. What's relevant is whether a person could react to it fully and integrate it.

R: We have raised goats and we have their horn buds removed by disbudding them. The procedure is horrible. They're encased in this little box with just their heads sticking out. You take this hot electric iron and you burn into the animal's skull to kill the horn bud. Our friends who do this have observed that if the animal has been a pet and has had a lot of stroking then they almost always scream during the procedure. But if the animal has not been made into a pet, then they just stand there and take it.

H: That's closely related to a human counterpart which is that if a child goes to ahospital himself for an operation, he's likely not to cry during the whole hospitalization. But if the mother is there, the child will cry incessantly. Until about 1952 this was interpreted as meaning that parents should not be with children inhospitals. Finally people became more enlightened and realized that the children were crying because it was safe to cry in the presence of their parents.

R: To the doctors and nurses I'm sure it is a lot easier if the child isn't making any noise.

H: It's at the expense of the child. The child has to hold on to pain in a neurotic way which means pushing pain back which is later expressed in other ways.

R: Sometimes when babies are being circumcised they don’t appear to respond to it. They don't cry. They shrink within themselves and don't react to it openly.

H: It's like the example of the baby goats. Is it safe for that child to cry? I would guess that if a mother is holding the child during circumcision the child would cry in agony...but why circumcise? When a kid is eight days old and he's strapped to a board, it's not safe to utter a peep! The whole body has to draw within and clamp down on that experience.

R: Is this what you see people do when they're reliving circumcision?

N: When they relive it they cry and express their feelings... the fear, the agony.

R: So evidently if a person is circumcised as a newborn he undergoes a severe trauma and as a result he is "not what he could have been" had he not had that , experience. Some of our greatest spiritual leaders in ancient times… Jesus and the prophets and the apostles...all would have been circumcised as infants. Are you saying that these men would have all been better people had they never been circumcised?!!

H: It doesn't make a value judgment about whether a person is good, bad, or indifferent. It just means that they still have some pain to express from their childhood. In the absence of that expression it will tend to come out in other ways ... insomnia, psychosomatic symptoms. If a child has been circumcised, that child has been traumatized. The child is a different sort of person than he would have been had he never had that pain.

R: But Jesus was circumcised as an infant, and He's supposed to be the most perfectperson that there ever was.

H: I don't want to get into a ...

P: No comment!

N: You are placing a value judgment on Jesus and...we really can't answer that!!

R: In some hospitals they do immediate circumcision right there in the delivery . room. In other hospitals they wait a day or two. Do you find a difference in the person who was circumcised immediately compared to the individual who was circumcised a few days later, as to what he would re-experience?

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R: In some hospitals they do immediate circumcision right there in the delivery room.In other hospitals they wait a day or two.Do you find a difference in the person who was circumcised immediately compared to the individual who was circumcised a few days later, as to what he would re-experience?

H: In general the earlier the trauma, the more vulnerable the child.

R: My basic feeling is that if you have to have it done, you should wait a few days. I think the worst thing would be to have it be his very first sensation in life.

P: At birth youare in so much shock and agony, you're shut down already. Maybe that s the time to have it.

H: I think it just should not be done. It's an avoidable trauma.

R: I agree. But do youfind a difference?

N: No. It's totally individual. Both seem to be equally as bad.

P: What's worse, a crack on the hand with a hammer today or tomorrow? When you're that little those kinds of things are about 20 times more painful than youcould tolerate to begin with. Whether it's done on the same day that you're born, or two days later, or eight days later ... if it's traumatic, it's traumatic. If we could absorb all the pain...and the meaning that it has, that you're taking something from me ... that I ~ feel unloved ... that I'm not getting what I need ... if we had tolerance for the entire amount of pain, the trauma would be resolved. Unfortunately we can't do that.

H: What I said about the timing of pain should be considered more in relation to months. If the child were circumcised at six months of age, it would be quite different than if it happened within the first month.

P: In terms of the development of the brain and the way that it can handle pain, that makes perfect sense.

H: The older the child the greater his ability to defend against pain.

R: Yet at six months parents and doctors would pay more attention to the child's reaction. At this age the child would look more like he's afraid and scream louder.They have more of a "personality" by then.

P: Right. They get them while they're helpless. They think they're not feeling anything right after birth and when they're six months old they can.

H: One newborn baby is extremely similar in behavior patterns to another newborn ~ baby. When individual personal past experience begins to be reflected In a child's behavior you see the development of "personality." "Personality" in the individual characteristics derives almost entirely from maturation of the cerebral cortex which is virtually non-functional in the newborn. So that euphemism about the child's developing personality is just talking about a neural schedule, a maturation of the cortex. But the baby can feel pain at any age.

R: We just haven't thought of newborn babies as being people.

P: The way they protest is meaningless. If your mother called us now and said Michael, you're going to be circumcised.

H: Well, I certainly would react differently than I would have at that age!!! "

P: In those days they could just pick you up and do it to you. Today they'd have to work to convince you. They'd have to bribe you …

H: Extort me!! Kill me!!

R: There are different types of circumcision devices. There are clamps. The Plasti-bell is a ring of plastic that stays in place for about a week. If a person relives his circumcision, is he aware of which device was used?

N: No. It hurts regardless.

R: My gut feeling is to tell my sons not to ever go through primal therapy because they would have to relive that pain of having been circumcised.

P: Well, I'm glad I did because of the meaning that it had for me. There's always been a certain kind of person that has terrified me during my whole life, based on that experience. There's a certain smell that I associate with that time. There’s a certain look that I associate with the people involved. Before I had the therapy those kind of experiences used to bring up that same feeling. I had absolutely no idea why I disliked certain kinds of people. There was a certain religious overtone to this thing that I've always disliked.

R: Did you perceive it as a spiritual or religious experience?

P: No. But later on going to temple, there was always a certain uneasy feeling about meeting the Rabbi and the other men. They all had black hats and beards and they had a certain smell. Those were the guys that did it to me and I always shied away from them.

H: One has irrational fears until you know where the fear came from.

P: That memory remained with me my whole life. In some way I was responding to people in a certain way based on that experience. Whenever anybody tried to take something away from me it made me feel utterly helpless, and panicked and tense. Anybody who wanted to do something similar to that ... it would bring up that feeling. It's not very pleasant going through life being afraid of people. ,

R: How do your parents feel about that? Do they know? Do they feel guilty?

H: He went through primal therapy because he wanted to. It had nothing to do with ~ his parents.

P: I haven't ever discussed that particular issue with my parents. My mother is pretty open about how she wiped me out when I was a kid. But she was a child herself when I was born. At that time people didn't know any better.

N: When people go through primal therapy and relive their infancy, they don't blame and judge their parents.

R: The books about primal therapy gave me that impression. I felt "This is fascinating, but these parents are real villains!"

H: No. That's not true. Parents do painful things to their children by accident or out of ignorance. But when you go through primal therapy you don't call your mother or father on the telephone and bawl them out.

N: Often it's just the reverse. Many people come into this therapy feeling hostile toward their parents. After understanding the isolated experiences that caused their traumas, sometimes they can have a relationship with their parents in the present that they didn't have previously.

H: Whether your children ultimately want primal therapy should be their decision, not yours or your husband's.

R: I agree. That was just my "gut" reaction! Finally, is primal therapy the same thing as rebirthing or natal therapy?

N: There's an enormous difference . .

H: Rebirthing is age-regressing back to the ideas or visual impressions of one's birth. It's not a complete re-experience. It is mock primal therapy. It is dangerous because if a person had an extremely painful birth and they start to re-experience that in a swimming pool in the presence of someone who knows nothing about primal pain, then they're on the verge of psychosis! Primal pain comes up very hard for people. It produces incredible anxiety. Part of the goal of primal therapy is opening a person up to just so much pain, to give them time, and integrate it in a sequential, . systematic way.

P: If they understood the way the brain was constructed they would realize that people could not connect birth experience consciousness and have its full meaning without second-line access which we call reliving other experiences that are less painful.

H: One has to go down to those painful experiences in a sequence over a long period of time. To go from the present to birth is like walking into a volcano. It's too much.It's impossible to integrate it.

References:

1.The Individual, Marriage, and the Family Wadsworth Publishing Co., Inc., Belmont, CA., c. 1968, p. 426.

2. Katz, Joseph, M.B. "The Question of Circumcision" International Surgery, Vol. 62, No. 9, Sept. 1977, p. 491.

3. Foley, John M., M.D. "The Unkindest Cut of All" Fact Magazine, July 1966, p. 309.

4. Weiss, Charles, Ph.D., M.D. "Circumcision in Infancy" Clinical Pediatrics, Vol. 3, No. 9, Sept. 1964, p. 561‑562.

5. DeLee, Joseph B., M.D. Obstetrics for Nurses W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, c. 1924 (1st ed. 1904), p. 437.

6. Valentine, Ferd C., M.D. "Surgical Circumcision" Jour. A.M.A., March 16,1901, p. 712.

7. Emde, Robert N., M.D.; Harmon, Robert J., M.D.; Metcalf, David, M.D.; Koenig, Kenneth L., M.D.; and Wagonfeld, Samuel, M.D. "Stress and Neonatal Sleep" Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol. 33, No. 6, Nov.‑Dec. 1971, p. 491‑493.

8. Anders, Thomas F., M.D. and Chalemian, Robert J., M.D. "The Effects of Circumcision on Sleep‑Wake States in Human Neonates" Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol. 36, No. 2, March‑April 1974, p, 174‑175.

9. Talbert, Luther M., M.D.; Kraybill, Ernest N., M.D.; & Potter, H.D. "Adrenal Cortical Response to Circumcision in the Neonate" Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol. 48, No. 2, Aug. 1976, p. 208‑210.

10. Richards, M.P.M.; Bernal, J.F.; and Brackbill, Yvonne "Early Behavioral Differences: Gender or Circumcision?" Developmental Psychobiology, Vol. 9, No. 1, p. 89‑95, 1976.

11. Brackbill, Yvonne & Schroder, Kerri "Circumcision, Gender Differences, and Neonatal Behavior: An Update" Developmental Psychobiology, Vol. 13, No. 6, Nov. 1980, p. 607‑614.

12. American Baby Magazine The First 12 Months of Life, 1979 Ed. "The First Week of Life," p. 23‑24.

13. Leboyer, Frederick, M.D. Birth Without Violence Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., c. 1975, p. 5, 6, 8, 15,16,19, & 29.

14. Ibid., p. 51.

15. Ibid., p. 59.

16. Ibid., p. 94, 95, 97,107,108,112.

17. Pearce, Joseph Chilton Magical Child

E.P. Dutton, New York, c.1977, p. 57‑59.

18. Valdes‑Dapena, Marie A., M.D. Sudden Unexplained Infant Death 1970 through 1975. U.S. Dept. of Health, Education & Welfare, Rockville, MD, c.1978, p. 7, 10.

19. "Before You Decide to Circumcise" Department of Family and Community Welfare, div. of The Remain Intact Organization, Larchwood, IA. (informational brochure)* (*Their source of information is not stated.)