If this is not your name, click here. Other Ophthalmic Surgery Organ Transplantation Orthopaedics Other Osteoarthritis Osteoporosis Otitis Otorhino. Janice Lander, Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Alberta and the University of Alberta Hospitals in Edmonton, compared a topical anesthetic, two injection-type anesthetics and no anesthetic among 52 healthy babies undergoing circumcision. The results were so conclusive, the study was cut short based on the ethical consideration of causing as little pain as possible. They discovered that topical anesthetic wasn't as beneficial as injection anesthesia, that the discomfort from administering anesthesia wasn't as great as the discomfort from a circumcision without anesthesia, and that the ring block anesthesia was the preferred type for blocking pain.
Several beliefs explain the practice of performing circumcision without anesthesia.
One is that newborns experience little or no pain from circumcision, the authors write. Researchers studied babies' heart rates and crying patterns during application of anesthetic as well as during the different stages of the circumcision procedure and following circumcision. Twelve newborns had a ring block with 0.8 millilitres of lidocaine without epinephrine infiltrated in a band or ring around the midpoint of the shaft of the penis. Fourteen newborns had a dorsal penile nerve block, where injections were given at two sites on the penis. A topical anesthetic was used on 15 of the newborns.