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Circumcision supporters like to think that babies will forget any pain experienced from being circumcised 10 minutes later and that will be the end of it. They also like to believe that as long as anesthesia is used circumcision won't be painful at all.

It may be true that anesthesia can make the procedure almost painless, but unless he's put under general anesthesia (which is too unsafe for infants) there's no guarentee that the procedure will always be painless, as backed up by Lander's study. There's also always the possibility that the anesthesia won't work, and while an adult circumcised can always say something about this an infant has no option but to just go through it. Even if the procedure itself is painless there's still a one to two week recovery period in which the open would will be constantly rubbing against the side of a diaper and urinated and deficated on, which will always be painful.

As for the claim about infants forgetting the pain, it may be true that no one can consciously remember being circumcised but there is a growing body of evidence that pain experienced in the neonatal period effects how one feels pain later in life. Below is a recent news article describing this research, followed by some links to studies and essays showing that circumcision is always a painful experience and it is not quickly forgotten.
Newborns' Pain May Influence Later Pain Sensitivity

NEW YORK, Aug 06 (Reuters Health) -- Pain inflicted in infancy -- including circumcision, needle sticks, and other procedures -- may render children especially hypersensitive to pain in later life, researchers suggest.

"Infants may 'learn' about pain through their early experiences and those 'memories' affect their future reactions to pain," explain investigators led by Dr. Fran Lang Porter of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Their findings are published in the August issue of The Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

Until recently, most healthcare professionals assumed that the immature developing nervous systems of newborns and infants served to dull their sensitivity to physical pain. But "research over the 20 years has unequivocally shown that the newborn infant, whether born prematurely or at full term, detects and responds to painful stimuli," according to the investigators. They believe that pain experiences in early life "may have long-lasting effects on future pain behavior."

For example, one study found that low birth weight 'preemie' babies were more likely to be sensitive to pain as adolescents than babies born at normal birth weight. This makes sense, the authors explain, because underweight babies kept in neonatal intensive care units are subject to many painful tests, including repeat diagnostic needle-pricks and other interventions.

The theory that babies do not remember and learn from their pain is also being debunked, according to the investigators. In a statement from the Journal, Porter noted that "there is evidence that memory for pain may be recorded at a biological level. At 6 months of age, most infants appear capable of remembering -- displaying fear in anticipation of a previously experienced painful procedure."

Neonatal pain may also impact on childhood psychology. Porter's team points out that rats exposed to pain in infancy displayed "increased anxiety and defensive... behavior" as adults compared with unexposed rats. Likewise, "very low birth weight (human) babies often have more educational, psychological, behavioral and emotional difficulties... during school-age and adolescence as compared with their peers."

There is a growing recognition among health professionals that the pain experienced by newborns and infants is excessive and should be minimized. Anesthesia has become a routine part of many circumcisions, for example, and topical anesthesia can be used to reduce the discomfort of neonatal heel-pricks or injections.

However, Porter's team believes that health professionals still face large gaps "between what they believe should be done to alleviate the pain of their patients and what they actually do to reach that goal." They speculate that "we may have to examine how children are viewed and valued within our society before real change can be expected."
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