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A penis-care information gap exists in North America where most physicians and parents do not know how to care for an intact boy's penis, especially his foreskin. They lack basic knowledge and personal experience, which would allow them to advise or provide proper care for boys. Unless this gap is filled with reliable information, many boys are at risk for penile problems and perhaps even circumcision-something that the parents and the boy would like to avoid. The causes and problems resulting from this clear case of remediable medical ignorance are discussed, and solutions offered.
Keywords: foreskin, penis, circumcision, infant, male, iatrogenic
After decades of nearly universal neonatal circumcision, the North American medical profession has become uninformed concerning the care of the natural penis. In the United States and Canada doctors and parents from the generation where circumcision was the norm have neither the medical training for nor the personal experience with the care of an intact (i.e., not circumcised) penis. Further complicating this situation is the widely-held, mistaken belief that a natural, intact penis is a birth defect, and somehow problematic and prone to disease.
Ironically, we have collectively forgotten what the rest of the world accepts as common knowledge-that the penis is inherently healthy and needs no special care. An effective educational program, aimed at parents and physicians, will be key in bridging this information gap, so that proper intact penis-care can become commonplace childrearing knowledge once again.
Today, one of every two baby boys born in the United States and Canada will leave the hospital with the entire penis he was born with. But, despite his parents' wishes that boy is still at risk for losing his foreskin to the scalpel due to improper care of the foreskin.
Most physicians and parents simply do not know how to treat or care for a natural penis. There have been a few warnings about this problem, but none loud enough to make a difference. To date, no program effectively deals with the re-education of doctors and parents on this important issue. FatherMag.com, an online fathering magazine, agrees: "The knowledge of how to care for a foreskin has largely disappeared in the United States" (Care of Intact Boys, 2006).
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