Report of the Task Force on Circumcision

Introduction

The 1971 edition of Standards and Recommendations of Hospital Care of Newborn Infants by the Committee on the Fetus and Newborn of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) stated "there are no valid medical indications for routine circumcision in the neonatal period." In 1975, an Ad Hoc Task Force of the same committee reviewed this statement and concluded "there is no absolute medical indication for routine circumcision of the newborn."¹ The 1975 recommendation was reiterated in 1983 by both the AAP and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) in the jointly published Guidelines to Perinatal Care.