At what age can a boy undergo circumcision surgery?

In fact, it is not necessary to go to the hospital for circumcision when a child is in puberty, unless it affects the normal bowel and urination function. It is not too late to do circumcision. As the child grows older, the penis will automatically get better, and the glans will naturally come out smoothly. When the child grows up and the penis is fully developed, it is time to consider doing circumcision.

Children nowadays have better nutritional conditions, so they generally have no problems in development and puberty starts earlier. Most children start puberty after the age of 10, and the penis starts to grow faster. After 2-3 years, the penis will grow into a full-fledged shape. At this time, the glans of some children will be exposed by themselves, and some will slowly turn it out by hand. Generally speaking, as long as the foreskin can be smoothly turned down to expose the glans, and the foreskin is loose, there is no need to rush for surgery.

After all, it is not a good thing to have a long foreskin, mainly because the cavity between the foreskin and the glans penis is a place where dirt and filth can accumulate and is not easy to clean (as shown in the following figure). In addition to being unhygienic, it is also easy to cause balanitis and inflammation and infection in the wife. Long-term stimulation may also cause pathological changes. Therefore, it is currently recommended in medicine that men should have their foreskin removed if they have a long foreskin. For example, in countries such as Israel and South Korea, almost all men have to undergo circumcision surgery, and the long-term benefit is that the incidence of penile cancer and cervical cancer in these countries has dropped significantly!

So, in what cases should the foreskin be removed? Here we will talk about the conditions for adult circumcision. The main reasons for adult circumcision include the following aspects: If the foreskin is just too long, the glans cannot be exposed when it is flaccid, but it can be completely exposed when erect, and it is convenient to clean at ordinary times, in this case, it is okay to remove the foreskin or not. If the foreskin and glans are often inflamed, or the girlfriend or wife often suffers from gynecological inflammation, or the foreskin and the outer opening of the foreskin are small, making it difficult to turn the glans upward, or the disease leads to low immunity (such as diabetes, tumor chemotherapy, etc.) and the foreskin is too long, the foreskin should be removed early.

Now let’s get back to the issue of children’s foreskin.

Many parents want to know at what age is it appropriate for children to undergo circumcision? There is actually no standard answer. Below are some of my clinical experiences and suggestions.

Because most children before puberty have phimosis, therefore, you should never perform circumcision on your child as soon as you hear about phimosis. Generally speaking, as long as it does not affect the child's urination, you can wait and there is no need to rush to perform circumcision. On the one hand, because the child is too young to cooperate, general anesthesia is required, and it is not worth it to perform this operation under general anesthesia.

Another important point is that before puberty, the penis of a child has not yet fully developed. It is difficult to accurately grasp the shape of the foreskin during surgery. After surgery, as the penis develops, it is difficult to predict what the foreskin will look like. In clinical practice, I have also encountered many children who had circumcision surgery in childhood and asked for plastic surgery because they were dissatisfied with the appearance when they grew up.