Is it moral to..........

[CCGirl]

have your infant's ears pierced? I had my daughter's ears pierced at 3 months of age. She cried for about 45 seconds, then settled down with her soother. She of course has no memory of this.

What do you say?

 

[Polycarp_fan]

have your infant's ears pierced? I had my daughter's ears pierced at 3 months of age. She cried for about 45 seconds, then settled down with her soother. She of course has no memory of this.

What do you say?

It would only be immoral if you didn't take care of her ears. Hopefully she looks adorable.

"Religion . . . it is the opium of the people." Karl Marx

Actually, opium is the opiate "of the people." Just watch MTV, read People magazine or go downtown in any sizeable (or small) city in the world. Religion is not harming people.

 

[Autumnleaf]

If the ear got infected and had to be amputated would it be moral? What if she got hepatitis C from the experience? You are basically risking your child's life. Is that moral?

 

[FaithLikeARock]

Wow Autumn, paranoia much? Assuming she took her daughter to a place where they follow all the typical procedures, the chances of that are almost nonexistent. It's unlikely even at a place that DOESN'T follow those procedures.

Seriously, the drive to the place to GET the baby's ear's pierced it more dangerous.

 

[IzzyPop]

I don't see it as a morality question.

My wife and I talked about it with our daughter. I feel that I do not have the right to make decisions about someone else's body. My daughter will most likely get her ears pierced, but the choice should be hers, not mine.

 

[Washington]

have your infant's ears pierced? I had my daughter's ears pierced at 3 months of age. She cried for about 45 seconds, then settled down with her soother. She of course has no memory of this.

What do you say?

I think deliberately putting a child through pain, no matter how short it may be, just to satisfy a mother's need to decorate her child is unconscionably inhumane.

 

[FaithLikeARock]

I think deliberately putting a child through pain, no matter how short it may be, just to satisfy a mother's need to decorate her child is unconscionably inhumane.

So what's your view on circumcision?

 

[Washington]

So what's your view on circumcision?

As long as a general, or at least a topical, anesthetic is used, and it is done for medical or perhaps religious reasons---not absolutely convinced religious reasons are justification---I see no problem.

 

[FaithLikeARock]

Well even with a powerful anesthesia it's still very painful. My aunt had her son circumcised and she herself cried at the amount of screaming he did. They can only give a certain amount of pain killers to newborns you see.

 

[Washington]

Well even with a powerful anesthesia it's still very painful. My aunt had her son circumcised and she herself cried at the amount of screaming he did. They can only give a certain amount of pain killers to newborns you see.

No I don't.

Not to argue for or against circumcision, but it does appear that anesthetic techniques for neonatal surgery are effective.

Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology
Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 357–375, 2004
available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com
Regional anaesthetic techniques for neonatal surgery: indications and selection of techniques
Martin Jo¨hr* MD Thomas M. Berger MD

CIRCUMCISION
Clinical relevance
In some societies circumcision is performed in virtually all boys at a very early age for traditional or religious reasons. Other societies perform this type of surgery only for medical indications, such as phimosis or recurrent infections. In the past, circumcision for traditional or religious reasons has often been done in awake neonates with minimal or even no pain relief at all. [And in the US, it still is.] Forceful immobilisation, e.g. on a circumcision board, and performance of the procedure in a crying patient has been an accepted practice until recently. Today, some type of procedural pain relief appears to be mandatory for most practitioners.39 In Western Europe, where circumcisions are largely performed for medical indications, a major regional block with a completely comfortable patient or a general anaesthetic is mandatory. Performing surgery on a crying patient would not be an acceptable standard. These two completely different attitudes might explain why for some colleagues topical anaesthesia40 – 42 or oral sucrose alone43,44 seem to be useful for procedural analgesia during circumcision,45 whereas for others, these techniques are clearly insufficient.

Penile block
Dorsal nerve penile block had already been proposed for neonatal circumcision by the late 1970s.46 Penile block, in Europe often combined with a general anaesthetic, provides prolonged pain relief for up to 6–24 h after penile surgery, much longer than a caudal block [but not nearly as long as the duration of pain from urine in the wound, which takes at least a week to heal.]. Two paramedian injections of 0.1 ml/kg ... Penile block has a good safety record: in a series of 3909 penile blocks no permanent damage occurred52, while inadvertent injection of the wrong solution and urethral puncture during ring block were the important and clearly avoidable complications.

Caudal or spinal anaesthesia
Single shot caudal anaesthesia can be used for neonatal circumcision. In our practice, 3 ml of a mixture at equal parts of lidocaine 1% with bupivacaine 0.25% with epinephrine were clinically effective in virtually all cases and had, apparently, the advantages of relatively rapid onset and prolonged pain relief. Nevertheless, the role of neuraxial anaesthesia for this type of intervention has to be questioned.
source
​

Of course, if pain is not/cannot be eliminated and the circumcision is not a medical necessity, I can't endorse it.

 

[Autumnleaf]

So what's your view on circumcision?

Male or female?

 

[KET20]

I would never get my child's ears pierced at such a young age. If she (or he) wanted to have them pierced later (I was allowed to get mine done for my 12th birthday, which seems like a pretty decent age to me), that would be fine, but I do not feel that I should make that decision for my child.

 

[quatona]

have your infant's ears pierced? I had my daughter's ears pierced at 3 months of age. She cried for about 45 seconds, then settled down with her soother. She of course has no memory of this.

What do you say?

Where I live we have the ears of our pet cats tattooed. As opposed to simply piercing them this has a practical reason, though.

 

[stan1980]

Where I live we have the ears of our pet cats tattooed. As opposed to simply piercing them this has a practical reason, though.

Is that a joke? Or is it for in case you lose your cat or something?

 

[stan1980]

have your infant's ears pierced? I had my daughter's ears pierced at 3 months of age. She cried for about 45 seconds, then settled down with her soother. She of course has no memory of this.

What do you say?

No big deal really. I'd probably wait till she was old enough to make her own mind up though, but it's not really that painful an experience.

 

[quatona]

Is that a joke? Or is it for in case you lose your cat or something?

Yes, it´s their ID card, so to speak.

 

[quatona]

I guess my main problem with piercing toddlers is that I have no idea why anyone would want to do that, and that the possible reasons that I can think of appear doubtful to me.

 

[HaloHope]

I would never get my child's ears pierced at such a young age. If she (or he) wanted to have them pierced later (I was allowed to get mine done for my 12th birthday, which seems like a pretty decent age to me), that would be fine, but I do not feel that I should make that decision for my child.

Yeh agree with you here KET.

Ive never worn earings in my life (in fact I dislike jewlery as a whole), and would have been pretty annoyed to have had my ears pierced as a kid without my consent as now Id be walking around with holes in my ears that would serve no purpose.

 

[Sitswithamouse]

I dont agree with babies and toddlers having ear peircings.
My daughters were 11 years of age when I eventually gave in to letting them have it done.
I'm not condemming anyone who has this done for their kids at an earlier age, it is their choice. It would not be my choice for peircings to be given to babies and toddlers and I also think it looks horrible on the kids involved.

 

[quatona]

I personally wouldn´t even see much good coming from colouring the hair of toddlers, painting their lips and fingernails or implanting diamonds in their front milk-teeth.
But that´s just me.