What happens to the baby at brit milah?

Answer 1

The counsel from relatives was it's harmless, it's healthy, it's just a few seconds. The doctor assured us the liquid anaesthetic he applied to the foreskin would make the procedure pain-free. The nurse spread our boy's limbs and gripped them tightly. He started bawling. A frenzy of bawling.

No-one had ever restrained him like this. There was a shriek. High-pitched, prolonged, unlike any sound I'd heard from him before. An instrument was attached to our son's penis, and with each manipulation our child let out more shrieks. And then when the cutting edge was pressed through his flesh we heard a twisting, animal-like groaning and he writhed and grimaced as though something truly awful was being done to him. And then it was over.

But it wasn't over. The instruments were wielded again for "neatening the cut" and then "dressing the wound" - steps usually done out of sight of parents and celebrants. Our boy had a new kind of voice which rose up hoarsely at each contact with his genitals.

At home, the wide-eyed look and soft gurgling were gone. Instead there was a helpless being with a raw wound to be re-bandaged repeatedly.

For two days and nights he was writhing and crying.

It had not been pain-free. It had not been a few seconds. It had been a betrayal of our son, and of ourselves.

Only much later did I learn from a consultant paediatric anaesthetist how a baby's pain is likely to be greater than an adult's with the same procedure.

If anaesthetics are injected, the procedure can be almost pain-free, but anaesthetic injections entail risks for a baby, and afterward while the wound heals protracted pain is inevitable. I learned that no matter who performs circumcisions, significant complications can threaten a child's survival or his future experience of life; bleeding, infection and deformities are one-in-50 events by conservative estimates. And each year there are deaths.

Excerpts from Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective

by Ronald Goldman, Ph.D.

"I had profound doubts about my decision [to circumcise]. But because open discussion of Brit Milah seems to be discouraged in the Jewish community, I experienced my doubts privately and without comfort. . . . Thus, a rite intended to inspire feelings of Jewish unity evoked in me a sense of loss and alienation."

"If a woman is made to distrust her most basic instinct to protect her newborn child, what feelings can she ever trust?"

"My tiny son and I sobbed our hearts out. . . . After everything I'd worked for, carrying and nurturing Joseph in the womb, having him at home against no small odds, keeping him by my side constantly since birth, nursing him whenever he needed closeness and nourishment-the circumcision was a horrible violation of all I felt we shared. I cried for days afterward."

"I have never heard such screams. . . . Will I ever know what scars this brings to your soul? . . . What is that new look I see in your eyes? I can see pain, a certain sadness, and a loss of trust."

"I've never even talked about this before-I thought I was the only one who worried about it."

"I heard him cry during the time they were circumcising him. The thing that is most disturbing to me is that I can still hear his cry. . . . It was an assault on him, and on some level it was an assault on me. . . . I will go to my grave hearing that horrible wail."

"The screams of my baby remain embedded in my bones and haunt my mind. . . . His cry sounded like he was being butchered. I lost my milk."

"I knew that this was a terrible mistake and that it was something that no one, especially newborn babies, should ever have to endure."

CIRCUMCISION IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE

• The maternal instincts and experiences of women uniquely qualify them for the important responsibility of caring for infants and protecting them from pain and harm.

• Research demonstrates that women are generally more sensitive than men to the needs and feelings of infants, and newborn infants recognize, prefer, and are more responsive to their mothers.1

• Generally, because they are not themselves circumcised, females are not subject to the personal psychological motivations of circumcised men to perpetuate the practice (e.g., "I want him to look like me").2

• According to a recent study, circumcision can adversely affect female sexual enjoyment.3

• Any adverse psychological consequences of circumcision on males may adversely affect male-female relationships.4

• Because of the prevalence of circumcision in the United States, some potential adverse psychological effects of circumcision on males (known/unknown) may have indirect adverse social effects on women.5

• Mothers sign the majority of hospital circumcision consent forms.6