Is Circumcision Painful?

Posting Date: 03/01/1999

Yes. Circumcision is extremely painful - and traumatic - for a baby. Just being strapped down is frightening for a baby. The often repeated statement that babies can't feel pain is not true.

Babies are as sensitive to pain as anyone else. Most babies scream frantically when their foreskins are cut off. Some defecate. Some lapse into a coma. The reason some babies don't cry when they are circumcised is that they can't cry because they are in a state of shock.

Most babies are circumcised without anesthesia. Anesthetics injected into the penis don't always work. Being stuck with a needle in the penis is itself painful for a baby, just as if would be for anyone else. No pain medication is given after the surgery or during the week to ten days it takes the wound to heal.

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