>Jewish women for hundreds of years have their sons circumcised on the eighth >day of life. The whole thing takes about 3 min. The baby may cry for only >one minute and is immediately given to the mother to breastfeed. This is >the situation with all my observant friends with sons and I never heard of >them having any breastfeeding difficulty following circumcisions. Maybe when >it's done as a medical procedure instead of the religious procedure by the >proper person it's different. But, in the Jewish religion if the baby is not healthy on the 8th day, the circ is not done until the baby is ready. When a circ is done on day 1 or 2 of life on a baby who is sleepy and may not have had some great latches yet...whose to say that this circ with its accompanied pain won't undermine the attempts to get that baby to wake up and nurse better? My son was circumcised by a moel who happened to be a urologist, and he cried for 15 minutes, and he was definitely more sleepy that day. Anne Eglash MD