The best protection from UTIs comes not from cutting off a small piece of the baby's skin, but from the mother herself. Jan Winberg et al (the Lancet, March 1989) concludes that the number of UTIs in newborn males could be reduced by strict rooming in of mother and baby or by active colonization of the baby with his mother's anaerobic gut flora. In this research, UTIs in newborn males were caused by Escherichia coli, bacteria not of maternal origin; therefore, infants had no passive resistance to these pathogens.
During delivery in a natural setting, the infant acquires aerobic and anaerobic intestinal flora from the mother, together with the necessary immunoglobins to resist infections from these agents through the placenta and breastmilk. When an infant is born in a sterile hospital setting, he is carefully protected from the possible contamination caused by his mother's body fluids, and then isolated in a nursery. His first contact with the E. coli strain is from the hospital environment itself, against which the infant has no resistance.
During the first few days of the infant's life, he should be handled by the mother and other members of his immediate family as exclusively as possible, whether circumcised or intact. The mother's resistance to the pathogenic effects of her own gut flora and that of the other family members should protect the infant from early UTIs. Once the infant has established his own gut bacteria colony, this will help protect him from colonization by stray pathogens.
The baby born in a typical hospital labor setting who is then removed to the nursery is at much greater risk for UTIs from stray bacteria than the infant born at home. Circumcision is no guarantee of health; contact with the mother and her breastmilk are an infant's first and foremost protection from infections.
-Diana Haught, Midwifery Today Issue 14
Reprinted from Midwifery Today E-News (Vol 1 Issue 37, Sep 10, 1999)
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