Circumcision Pictures From A Women's Magazine in the 1980's

Few babies receive pain relief. Lidocaine is used. Note it is for after the operation. According to several nurses at University of Michigan, it does very little or nothing to aleviate the pain of circumcision. Betadine is used to swab the penis and scrotum to help prevent infection

The foreskin is sealed down to the penile head and must be torn off in order to be retracted in infancy. The foreskin is pulled up, clamped for several minutes to prevent excess bleeding, and cut along the clamp with a scalpel. What you see is not foreskin, but skin from the shaft of the penis. The edges stick together because they are still "raw".

The distinction between shaft skin and where the foreskin was cut away is obvious. The part of the foreskin that used to touch the glans ("inner foreskin") is what is between the shaft skin and the penile head in the picture. Excessive bleeding is the most common complication of infant circumcision. After the inner foreskin is removed, notice that half the shaft skin has been cut away-- altogether,about 2/3 of all the skin of the penis.
The remaining shaft skin is pulled up to meet the glans and attached with stitching. The penis now has 1/3 to 1/2 less penile skin to accomodate erections and the glans is permanantly exposed. The glans will lose its shininess and dark red coloring as the site heals within the next week or so. What was before an internal part of the body, is now external and it will grow a sort of callous over the glans as part of the healing process.

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