by Dorri Olds<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
Courtesy of Jennifer Margulis<\/i><\/p>\n
According to a 2014 study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the United States is the only developed country with increasing rates of maternal mortality rates. And the World Health Organization reported that between 1990 and 2013, the maternal mortality rate increased from about 12 to 28 deaths per 100,000 births in the U.S. Journalist and researcher, Jennifer Margulis believes this is because America\u2019s health care system is failing pregnant women.<\/p>\n
Margulis is the author of six books on the topics of childcare, including her recently published \u201cYour Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions,\u201d published by Simon and Schuster. A former Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University, she has openly criticized the big business of childbirth and the soaring numbers of Caesarean sections in the United States.<\/p>\n
The Boston native and daughter of scientists, Margulis, 45, has dedicated much of her career to researching the medical and business practices of childbirth and childcare in the United States. Her mother, famed microbiologist Lynn Margulis was married to astrophysicist Carl Sagan before meeting Margulis\u2019s father, an X-ray crystallographer.<\/p>\n
Margulis lives in Oregon with her Italian-American Catholic-raised husband, and their four children \u2014 who they are raising Jewish. With a master\u2019s in comparative literature from U.C. Berkeley and a Ph.D. in English from Emory, Margulis dedicated her career to research.<\/p>\n
Margulis spoke to the Forward\u2019s Dorri Olds about her decision not to circumcise her son and other concerns.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
Are you pro or con circumcision?<\/b><\/p>\n
There\u2019s a huge movement now called Beyond the Bris. It\u2019s Jewish people choosing not to circumcise. What we used to think was a small, benign thing to do is really removing a lot of skin. Rebecca Wald, a Jewish lawyer in Florida, has written a book with a colleague about a ceremony called Brit Shalom. Instead of having a bris, you have a naming ceremony but leave the baby\u2019s penis intact. Many Jews in America and Israel are choosing not to circumcise because they\u2019re convinced that the harms outweigh the benefits.<\/p>\n
The harm being the pain?<\/b><\/p>\n
Babies feel pain, yet some hospitals give them no anesthesia. When the baby\u2019s penis skin is cut, he loses erogenous tissue, taking away nerve endings that heighten sexuality and lessening the width and length of the penis. There are complications. The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a task force analysis and issued a bogus and unscientific statement in 2012 that the benefits of circumcision outweigh the harms. They recommended that insurance companies pay for it, but the AAP never actually recommended the procedure.<\/p>\n
As a journalist and researcher on this topic for over 10 years, it\u2019s clear, based on scientific studies and doctors, the harms grossly outweigh the benefits, but the AAP disagrees with me. Many Jewish men are now saying, \u201cThe decision should\u2019ve been ours.\u201d What I told my son is, \u201cYou can make the choice to be circumcised once you\u2019re 13.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought circumcision was done for health reasons. Isn\u2019t it better for men?<\/b><\/p>\n
No, that\u2019s not true. More than 70% of men worldwide are not circumcised. In countries that have nationalized medicine and made it not-for-profit, circumcisions went to almost zero. Men in Scandinavia and Spain, where fewer than 2% are circumcised, aren\u2019t having more health problems than circumcised men.<\/p>\n
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