A common misconception is that the
baby experiences a great deal of pain from circumcision. In truth, the
performance of RITUAL circumcision is almost painless for the child. In
contrast, the method of circumcision practiced in most hospitals today
uses a Gamco clamp to crush the skin and seal the blood vessels, giving an
almost bloodless circumcision albeit with great pain to the infant.
Ritual circumcision on the other hand, is performed using a finely honed
blade of surgical steel (that has an edge comparable to a scalpel) and a
non-constricting guard which is placed over the foreskin. The procedure
involves the removal of a small piece of skin – no flesh or muscle is
cut at all!
The statement that
circumcision is almost painless to the child is not made lightly. Indeed, it has happened
that while performing a circumcision on an adult, the local anesthetic has not taken
effect. This occurs in rare cases where the patient is immune to the anesthesia. In this
particular case, the patient experienced absolutely no pain from the circumcision itself.
In fact, after the circumcision was completed, he inquired as to when the procedure would
begin. It was only when the attending surgeon attempted to tie off the blood vessels and
to suture the skin, that he made it known in a most vocal manner that the anesthetic had
not taken. Since a newborn does not require sutures nor does he need the blood vessels to
be tied, he does not experience this pain. In addition, it should be noted that the
nerves in a newborn on the eighth day are not fully developed.
On one occasion, a highly experienced
Mohel was supervising a student performing a circumcision. The Mohel was holding the
infant on his lap during the procedure (he was the Sandek). The student performed a
perfect circumcision and he was about to close the diaper after completing the dressing,
when the Mohel noticed some blood on the diaper. Concerned that the dressing had not
contained the bleeding, he reopened the diaper. The dressing was neatly in place and there
was no bleeding.
Puzzled, he once again
closed the diaper and was surprised to find additional blood on the outside. It was only
at this point that the Mohel discovered that the student had inadvertently cut the Mohel’s finger during the procedure. The cut was all the way to the bone and yet the
Mohel had not felt a thing. If a deep wound to the bone did not cause any pain in an
adult, certainly a superficial skin cut with the same instrument should not cause any pain
in a newborn – especially since the nerves in a newborn are not fully developed.
If this true, why then
does the infant cry? A newborn will tend to cry as soon as his diaper is opened and he is
uncovered. This may be due to a need to feel enclosed or merely due to feeling cold. If
one pays careful attention one will see that the baby starts to cry before any procedure
has actually been performed. Notice also, that the infant stops crying shortly after the
procedure and then usually falls asleep. The discomfort experienced by the infant
afterwards is mainly due to the dressing on the wound, which is foreign to the child.
