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Argument: Circumcision violates the trust between parent and child

Issue Report: Infant male circumcision

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Paul M. Fleiss, MD. “The Case Against Circumcision”. Mothering. Winter 1997 – Circumcision harms mothers: Scientific studies have consistently shown that circumcision disrupts a child’s behavioral development. Studies performed at the University of Colorado School of Medicine showed that circumcision is followed by prolonged, unrestful non-REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep.65 In response to the lengthy bombardment of their neural pathways with unbearable pain, the circumcised babies withdrew into a kind of semicoma that lasted days or even weeks.

Numerous other studies have proven that circumcision disrupts the mother-infant bond during the crucial period after birth. Research has also shown that circumcision disrupts feeding patterns. In a study at the Washington University School of Medicine, most babies would not nurse right after they were circumcised, and those who did would not look into their mothers’ eyes.66

[…]Most parents want what is best for their baby. Wise parents listen to their hearts and trust their instinct to protect their baby from harm. The experience of the ages has shown that babies thrive best in a trusting atmosphere of love, gentleness, respect, acceptance, nurturing, and intimacy. Cutting off a baby’s foreskin shatters this trust. Circumcision wounds and harms the baby and the person the baby will become. Parents who respect their son’s wholeness are bequeathing to him his birthright-his body, perfect and beautiful in its entirety.

“The Pain of Circumcision Impacts Babies (and the Adults They Become)”. National Organization of Circumcision Information. Opposing Views – Circumcision encodes the brain with pain and trauma, disrupts the maternal/infant bond, interferes with normal breastfeeding and sleep patterns, and undermines the baby’s first developmental task of establishing trust. Circumcision, for the baby, is a primal wound.