Pediatricians against "Sucking by mouth": "Endangers children"

The Association of Pediatricians demands to act to prevent the custom of "Metzitza" by mouth at a Bris Milah.

According to YNET, the association of pediatricians has approached the executive manager of the Ministry of Health with a demand to inform the public of parents regarding the existing possibility to refrain from the custom of "sucking by mouth" at a Bris Milah, and exchanging it with drawing the blood by means of a tube, which has been approved by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

To the association's claim, there is a danger of direct infection to the newborn with the herpes virus by the action of sucking with the Mohel's mouth.

In June 2012, the health authorities in the USA reported 11 Jewish newborns who became ill during 2000-2011 in New York with the infection, out of which 6 died.
As a result, the medical authorities in New York have banned the custom.

In Israel too, a few cases of harsh infection have occurred with newborns as a result of sucking by mouth at a Bris Milah.

In the letter, the association claims that "we estimate that only a small percentage of the public and the circumcised babies' parents know that there is a possibility of performing the suction by means of tube, which is allowed according to halacha and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which prevents any danger of infecting the newborn with a dangerous infection.

"We turn to you with a request to act in order to inform the newborns' parents before the Milah about the possibility of performing the Bris Milah without direct sucking, by means of disseminating this information to babies' parents before the Milah at the babies' wards and the infant welfare clinics in Israel, and with announcements to the public".

The Ministry of Health responded that "The issue of the Bris Milah ceremony is supervised by the inter-official committee for supervision over Mohalim, with the representative of the Ministry of Health as a member of this committee. It is not known of a new and/or unusual phenomenon of harm of newborns as a result of performing Bris Milah.

"In extenuating circumstances, the professional committee acts individually in order to investigate the matter, and preventing a recurrence of similar cases. Regarding the letter of the chairman of the Pediatricians Association, chairman of Hif"a and chairman of the Israeli Association of Neonatology, the executive manager of the Ministry of Health will turn to the coordinator of the committee of supervision over Mohalim, in order to find ways to inform Mohalim and parents about ways of preventing infections during the performance of the Milah".

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!