Parents' Rationale for Male Circumcision

Objective: To determine which factors parents consider to be most important when pursuing elective circumcision procedures in newborn male children.

Design: Prospective survey.

Setting: Saskatoon, Sask.

Participants: A total of 230 participants attending prenatal classes in the Saskatoon Health Region over a 3-month period.

Main Outcome Measures: Parents' plans to pursue circumcision, personal and family circumcision status, and factors influencing parents' decision making on the subject of elective circumcision.

Results: The reasons that parents most often gave for supporting male circumcision were hygiene (61.9%), prevention of infection or cancer (44.8%), and the father being circumcised (40.9%). The reasons most commonly reported by parents for not supporting circumcision were it not being medically necessary (32.0%), the father being uncircumcised (18.8%), and concerns about bleeding or infection (15.5%). Of all parents responding who were expecting children, 56.4% indicated they would consider pursuing elective circumcision if they had a son; 24.3% said they would not. In instances in which the father of the expected baby was circumcised, 81.9% of respondents were in favour of pursuing elective circumcision. When the father of the expected child was not circumcised, 14.9% were in favour of pursuing elective circumcision. Regression analysis showed that the relationship between the circumcision status of the father and support of elective circumcision was statistically significant (P < .001). Among couples in which the father was circumcised, 82.2% stated that circumcision by an experienced medical practitioner was a safe procedure for all boys, in contrast to 64.1% of couples in which the father of the expected child was not circumcised. When the expecting father was circumcised, no one responded that circumcision was an unsafe procedure, compared with 7.8% when the expecting father was not circumcised (P = .003).

Conclusion: Despite new medical information and updated stances from various medical associations, newborn male circumcision rates continue to be heavily influenced by the circumcision status of the child's father.