Medical Evidence Showing Circumcised Males Are Less Susceptible To Urinary Tract Infections

Infant Bladder Infection Common

Reuters Health, New York, May 19, 1997. Dr.Thomas Newmon, Professor of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco (UCSF)

"More than 1 in 10 babies with fever going to the pediatrician may be suffering from--often undiagnosed--urinary tract infections(UTIs) experts say.
"We know that fever in this age group can be due to life threatening illness, but most of these babies have colds or other mild illnesses that get better themselves, said Dr. Thomas Newman, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco (USCF). He believes "the difficult issue is how to identify the few babies needing treatment without doing lots of unecessary test on all remaining infants."

Newman and his USCF colleagues suspected that UTIs might be more prevalent among infants 3 months of age than generally thought.

They canvassed over 200 pediatricians involved in the Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) Network, affiliated with the American academy of Pediatrics
The researchers perused the records of nearly 900 babies who were brought to PROS clinics after experiencing unexplained fever. Less than half of those infants were asked to give urine to be tested for bacterial infection.
But of those 420 infants who were evaluated via urine sample, 50 (11%) tested positive for bladder infection.

Seven of those 50 infants had concurrent bacterial infection (septicemia), which can be dangerous- and in some cases, even fatal. Many bacterial blood infections might not initially present with severe symptoms, however-in fact, only four of the seven babies appeared to be more than "slightly ill", according to the UCSF report. And none of those (clinically) ill infants displayed feverish symptoms while in the pediatrician's office, though their temperatures did rise when home.

"Evaluation of fever in infants less than 3 months old is a major challenge," Newman admits.

He believes that, since UTI symptoms can be either subtle or nonexistent, a routine urine test becomes imperative in infants presenting with fever.

In a related finding, researchers discovered that the strongest risk factor for infant UTI was being an uncircumcised male. Those babies were found to have 10 times the infection rate of their circumcised counterparts.