There is quite a leap from a heel stick to a circumcision, both in the sensitivity of the area affected and the extent of the painful stimulus. If I were the parents I would be wanting to know why the hospital wasn't planning to give my son a local anesthetic (if I had an infant son who was to be circumcised, which I don't). I would at least demand that they show me convincing evidence that sugar water did the trick for the pain of a circumcision. What do the anesthesiologists at this hospital say? I am only aware of studies showing that sugar water is effective for heel sticks and venipuncture, not for surgery. I routinely recommend mothers breastfeed for heel sticks and rarely hear babies crying from them anymore. If the baby is not breastfed, being held and fed from a bottle seems to have about the same analgesic effect. (I hardly ever see non-breastfed babies so my sample size is very small.) Rachel Myr Kristiansand, Norway *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html