Shortly before his first birthday, Alex Socarides and Gabe Fried took their son, Archer, to a pediatric urologist. His circumcision looked funny. Prior to the examination, the doctor reassured them that most babies grow into their circumcisions. Besides, he said, boys with extra skin will have good company in future locker rooms, since these days doctors are removing less and less. "The minute he took Archer's diaper off, it was clear from his face that our son wasn't like most babies," recalls Socarides. "He said it would always look like something was botched."
During the fortyish weeks of pregnancy, many parents-to-be must make a choice: to circumcise or not to circumcise. Though the nonreligious may agonize (is it child abuse or disease protection?), rarely are moms and dads concerned that a circumcision might go wrong. But it does happen. Call them partial, loose, or conservative—there is a growing number of circumcisions that, to quote Charlotte from Sex and the City, look "like a shar-pei." And while no scientific studies confirm the increase, doctors who care for infants are aware of the phenomenon. Moneer K. Hanna, M.D., a clinical professor of urology at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, sees about four babies a week for recircumcisions and estimates the incidence of partial circumcisions at about 20 percent.
In an effort to make sense of what has happened to their sons, parents flock to one another online. One only needs to follow the threads on the Berkeley (California) Parents Network, which has more than 16,000 subscribers (many from out of state), to get up to speed: circumcision—recircumcise?"; "Redo 10-month-old's circumcision?"; "Fixing problem circumcision." On another online parenting network, an upset mom confides: "I noticed before [my son's] two-month appointment that his circumcision wasn't done correctly. I don't want him to have that ugly worm-in-a-turtleneck look."
There's no consensus among doctors as to why those who perform circumcisions are leaving extra foreskin behind, but fear of malpractice may be one reason. "Circumcision is not an exact procedure," explains Hanna. "The foreskin is pulled, the instrument is applied, and then you cut. If you pull gently, you can leave a little extra." He believes obstetricians, fearing litigation, pull more gently today than in the past.
Another explanation for the parents crowding his waiting room is the current fixation on perfection. "The public is obsessed with appearances and with cosmetic surgery," Hanna says. "They're more demanding than they used to be." In today's climate of parental anxiety and baby one-upmanship (penises and all), what once passed as standard medical deviation may now be viewed as a surgical error, resulting in a trek to the doctor.
Sometimes, though, a little baby fat is all it takes to trigger false alarms. "Many babies accumulate fat around the base of the penis," says Emily Blake, an ob-gyn and a mohel who performs brises in New York City. "A normal penis is there; it's just partially buried beneath a pubic fat pad. This can push the foreskin far enough forward to make the penis appear uncircumcised." These boys will grow into their penises once they start crawling and turning fat to muscle.
Next Page: Is fixing a partial circumcision worth elective surgery?
