Although it is
commanded that our sons have brisses,
nowhere is it written that we have to avoid things that decrease
discomfort. In my experience, the
following are helpful:
·
Feed the baby shortly beforehand. Hungry babies are squirmier and cry
more. Full babies are calmer.
·
Give Tylenol 30-60 minutes in advance. Please see the
separate page about Tylenol for details.
·
Sweet Concord grape wine.
Scientific evidence has shown that giving
babies something sweet to suck on decreases their sense of discomfort. When hospital circumcisions or other
potentially uncomfortable procedures are done, babies are given sugar
water. It’s always been
traditional to give wine at the time of a bris. I don’t know anything sweeter than
Concord grape wine, do you? Either
a pacifier or a finger can be dipped in the wine and given to the baby to suck
on.
·
Local anesthesia. There are several techniques for doing
this involving injectable lidocaine (the same stuff your dentist uses when
working on your teeth). My
recommendation is to do the injection directly into the foreskin area using a
30-gauge needle. This is the same
sized needle used by diabetics to inject insulin and has an extremely small
diameter. It takes less than a
minute to do, and babies barely react to the injection. I do it in another room just prior to
starting the ceremony, and it works very well.
·
Cuddling. One difference between a hospital circumcision and a bris is that literally within seconds
after the procedure, the baby can be in his mother’s arms.
Many, if not most,
babies cry just from being undressed and prevented from kicking, but the above
things are very helpful in reducing actual discomfort.
6/2012
