Baby Boy Dies From Circumcision

A one-week-old Ontario infant died from complications after undergoing a circumcision in a provincial hospital.

By CanWest News Service June 14, 2007

OTTAWA -- A one-week-old Ontario infant died from complications after undergoing a circumcision in a provincial hospital.

Information about the case was published in the April edition of Paediatric Child Health.

The baby, whose name has been withheld by the parents, passed away after his bladder became enlarged to seven times their normal size.

The child was born at an unidentified Ontario hospital "sometime in the last three years," said Dr. Jim Cairns, Ontario's deputy chief coroner. "The family wants to keep this anonymous."

No charges were ever laid and no legal action was ever taken in the case.

According to the Paediatric Child Health article, the boy was "bottlefed and was reported to be doing well when he was circumsized."

Five hours later, the parents returned to their family doctor with the infant, who had become "irritable and had blue discoloration" below the belly button.

Doctors noticed the discoloration and slight swelling of the penis, but sent the child home.

Fourteen hours after the circumcision, according to Cairns, the child was brought to another hospital where doctors noted he was extremely irritable with marked swelling of the penis and bruising to the scrotum.

The child was then transferred to a paediatric centre, where his bladder was diagnosed, Cairns said, to "seven or eight times its normal size."

Image of PlastiBell ring.

The PlastiBell ring, which is used to hold back the foreskin after circumcision, was removed and drained and the child went into shock.

"If the PlastiBell had been taken off five hours after he got there, he would be alive," said Cairns.

The child's death was attributed to septic shock - "an overwhelming infection, leading to multi-organ failure," Cairns said.

"Death is rare after circumcision," said Cairns. "But complications can happen."

The case was brought to Cairns' attention because the circumstances of every death of an Ontario child under five years of age must be reviewed by the provincial coroner's office.

Infant circumcision causes 100 deaths each year in US

April 26th, 2010 by ICGI

A new study published yesterday in Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studiesestimates that more than 100 baby boys die from circumcision complications each year, including from anesthesia reaction, stroke, hemorrhage, and infection. Because infant circumcision is elective, all of these deaths are avoidable.

The International Coalition for Genital Integrity applauds that, for the first time, a rational attempt has been made to estimate the scale of the problem, and is simultaneously appalled by how many baby boys needlessly die each year in the United States.

The study concluded: “These boys died because physicians have been either complicit or duplicitous, and because parents ignorantly said ‘Yes,’ or lacked the courage to say ‘No.’” And called the deaths “an unrecognized sacrifice of innocents.”

The study found that approximately 117 neonatal (first 28 days after birth) circumcision-related deaths occur annually in the United States, one out of every 77 male neonatal deaths. The study also identified reasons why accurate data on these deaths are not available, some of the obstacles to preventing these deaths, and some solutions to overcome them.

Previous studies estimated the death rate as low as two per year to as many as 230. The study collected data from hospital records and government sources to attempt to provide a more accurate magnitude of the problem.

To put this in perspective, about 44 neonatal boys die each year from suffocation, and 8 from auto accidents. About 115 neonatal boys die annually from SIDS, nearly the same as from circumcision.

Because of the inadequacies of the death-certificate system and the apparent lack of investigation, it is easy to see how the medical system could either unwittingly or intentionally obscure the true cause of these deaths.

To hospital residents, the birth of a boy is celebrated as an opportunity to practice surgery, but a resident’s first surgery upon a live human being does not always go as planned.

Many factors combine to explain the lack of reliable mortality data or why this problem has not received more attention. To ignore or hide the likely cause of so many infant deaths for so many years requires a significant amount of denial or obfuscation—by: parents, physicians, hospital staff, insurers, medical associations, and legislators.

Boys have been lost to circumcision in the United States from the time it was first practiced to the present day, for a variety of reasons, as the following examples illustrate. The first two, known reported circumcision-related deaths were in New York City, in 1856 and 1858, where circumcision was introduced.

For more information on this study, inquire here.

When Circumcision Kills

Queens toddler's death probed after surgery at Beth Israel Hospital - NYPOST.com

Tot's shock hosp death

Tragic circumcision

By CYNTHIA R. FAGEN

Last Updated: 6:37 AM, May 5, 2011

Posted: 2:09 AM, May 5, 2011

More Print

The grieving family of a tragic Queens toddler are blasting doctors at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan -- accusing them of botching a simple circumcision that led to the boy's sudden death.

Jamaal Coleson Jr. died Tuesday, about 10 hours after what was supposed to be a routine procedure, according to his uncle Jabbar Coleson, 23.

Coleson said the hospital was supposed to give his nephew a local analgesic, but instead administered a general.

The boy, who would have turned 2 next month, "Woke up and laughed and called for his mother and then went critical.

JAMAAL COLESON
Anesthetic blamed.

"I want to know what happened," Coleson said.

"He was so sweet and energetic and so happy, a very happy child. I am very upset and I am glad I am a couple of hundred miles away. I have time to calm down and say my prayers," said Coleson, who lives in Atlanta.

He said the boy never regained consciousness he was declared dead at 8:35 p.m. the same day.

Now the family wants to know what went horribly wrong.

The hospital said in a statement, "We extend heartfelt condolences to the family of the young patient in question. This is a devastating event for his family as well as for the staff at Beth Israel who tried to save his life," according to a statement from the hospital.

"We immediately notified the Medical Examiner's Office and requested that they accept this case for further review, which they have."

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the ME, confirmed an autopsy was conducted yesterday to determine the cause of death.

"We also are in the process of reporting this case as an unexpected death to the NYS Department of Health," the hospital statement continued.

"We will conduct our own internal review of this case, report our findings to the DOH [state Department of Health] and cooperate fully with the DOH on any further inquiries they may have."

The boy's mom, Taleah Echezerriam, was too distraught to talk.

She and the boy's dad, Coleson's brother, were to be married next year.

"We just don't understand what happened. Now my mother [the boy's grandmother] is out buying his suit for the funeral," said Coleson.

cynthia.fagen@nypost.com

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/tot_shock_hosp_death_Eja8FLrJF8YtHPCR3JMSMP#ixzz1LXFGp3JE