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Originally Posted by SirConcis  Re: the 60% circumcision rate statistic. |
This is a general comment rather than a reply.
I figure 60% is from the often quoted National Hospital Discharge Survey. It's really an estimate; the actual number isn't really known. It may be incomplete but it
is essentially the best tracking of infant circumcision that we have at this time. It's most useful for deriving multi-year trends; year-to-year fluctuations should be viewed carefully. It shouldn't be extrapolated to the adult population.
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This number may not be wholly representative. More and more mothers are discharged early from hospital and they get the circumcision done separately during a seubsequent visit to hospital or to a doctor's clinic, so those circumcision don't show up in the "birth" records use by those statistics.
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Some of the pro-cutters make that assertion but I don't buy into it. It's generally well-known that if a baby leaves the hospital intact it's rather unlikely he'll be cut later. Moreover there is an increasing number of babies being born outside of the medical establishment using midwives/doulas. Safe assumption: a lower percentage of those are being cut. All of those births are completely missed by NHDS.
So, SirConcis, you're correct that the number "may not be wholly representative". The true R.I.C. rate might be much lower!
