Doctors still disagree on whether your son needs this surgery

For most of medical history, circumcision needed no debate, because for most of medical history it wasn't done for medical reasons at all. Heidi Murkoff traces its practice back through the Old Testament and further, into antiquity, as a religious act for Muslim and Jewish communities long before any doctor claimed a health benefit for it. It became common in the United States only in the late nineteenth century, on the theory that removing the foreskin would reduce sensitivity and make masturbation less tempting. It doesn't, and it didn't, and over the following decades doctors floated other justifications, that circumcision might prevent epilepsy, tuberculosis, even a vaguely defined lunacy. None of it held up.

What's left, once the disproven claims are stripped away, is a genuinely mixed picture, and Murkoff doesn't try to resolve it into a clean answer, because the evidence doesn't allow one. Circumcision does lower the risk of penile infection and eliminates the risk of phimosis, a tightening of the foreskin that can later require the very procedure a family avoided in infancy; Murkoff notes an estimated 5 to 10 percent of uncircumcised males eventually need circumcision later for exactly this reason, under conditions far less comfortable than a newborn procedure. But when the American Academy of Pediatrics reviewed the evidence in 1999, its task force concluded that the medical benefits, while real, weren't significant enough to recommend circumcision as routine. The risk of urinary tract infection in uncircumcised boys is real but low, about one percent. The risk of penile cancer or sexually transmitted infection may be very slightly higher in uncircumcised men, but the increase is small enough that it may not outweigh a family's decision to leave the foreskin intact, or the small risk of complications that comes with the surgery itself, complications that can include bleeding, infection, or an improperly healed cut.

So the AAP's actual position is neither for nor against: it recommends that parents be informed of both sides and then make the choice that fits their own family, weighing medical evidence alongside religious observance, cultural tradition, and simple preference. That's a harder instruction to follow than a straightforward recommendation would be, because it hands the decision back to parents instead of settling it for them. What it does offer is a way to make the choice responsibly, whichever way it goes: an experienced practitioner, pain relief if the procedure is performed, and honesty with yourself that you're weighing values, not just facts, because on the facts alone, the case doesn't tip decisively in either direction.

Start by setting aside the myths, the idea that circumcision curbs later behavior or prevents unrelated illnesses has no evidence behind it, so don't let old claims weigh on a modern decision. Weigh the real trade-off instead: a five to ten percent chance an uncircumcised boy needs the procedure later for infection or phimosis, against the small surgical risks of doing it now. Talk openly with your partner about the religious, cultural, or personal reasons that matter to your family, since the medical evidence alone doesn't tip decisively either way. And if you do go ahead, insist on pain relief and an experienced practitioner, because that's the part of the decision that isn't actually up for debate.