However, there is no certainty that short-term local analgesia would do so. In neonatal circumcision there must be more than one component of pain. There will be acute pain when the foreskin is crushed by a clamp and then excised, and this pain would be reduced or obliterated by local analgesia. But since the prepuce is adherent to the glans, circumcision involves tearing these layers apart, leaving the glans raw and bleeding. This raw surface must cause pain as it is abraded by soiled napkins for days after surgery.
Local analgesia is only effective for a few hours.
The only sure way of avoiding the long-term harmful effects of neonatal circumcision is for doctors to abandon this unnecessary, intrusive, mutilating, and painful operation. It sounds like a priapic nightmare, but it's about to become reality next year. A San Diego, Calif., company called Advanced Tissue Sciences plans to manufacture human skin grown in vats on an industrial scale using tissue from circumcised babies. From each tiny foreskin the company will generate 23,225 square metres of human skin, enough to cover the six sports fields. It will be used in transplants, for treating burn victims and for diabetic ulcer patients.