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Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

nytimes.com

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Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#271

Post by rprospero »

bergenty wrote: post #216
jnovek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Babies feeling pain is something that should be self-evident, shouldn't it?” I have yet to understand the historical underpinnings of this phenomenon, but as someone who deals with chronic pain, doctors don’t seem to be aware that people feel pain _in general_. I’m being sort of facetious, but any chronic pain community is full to the brim with stories of various medical professionals being skeptical of patients’ pa…

It’s because people lie for many reasons. To get out of work, get disability, make a claim, to get opioids because they’re addicted to them etc. As a doctor, you’re probably going to become cynical after a while. This is very different from a baby because they have little motivation to lie and you can see them reacting to simple painful situations like bumping their head.

> As a doctor, you’re probably going to become cynical after a while.

As my go to story on these sorts of issues, my partner had an ER doctor tell them that they hadn't been stabbed. The fact that there was an open wound oozing blood and multiple witnesses was not sufficient evidence. That wound was obviously a diabetic sore. That my partner is not diabetic was also a lie and the fact that their medical records showed no history of diabetes was merely proof of the incompetence of the previous doctors. Stitching the wound had to wait for two blood sugar tests to be performed, because the first test was could only have been a machine glitch. After a second negative test for diabetes, the doctor finally conceded that he couldn't rule out a stabbing.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#272

Post by Sharlin »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #113
mike00632 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid it's the case that most all surgeries on infants (circumcision) are elective and performed for aesthetic reasons. For males it's likely they only time they will go into shock from pain during their lives.

I find it sad, how people universally agree that female genital mutilation is bad, because cutting off parts for no medical reason is bad.... but then do the same thing to boys, "just because".

Well, people don't universally agree that FGM is bad because there are people who practice FGM. Also, most people think MGM is… if not barbaric, at least weird, but are somewhat lenient in the name of religious tolerance. The US is the extremely weird outlier.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#273

Post by foldr »

Auracle wrote: post #201
jacobolus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure this is literally about skin thickness. Here is the list of false beliefs polled: Blacks age more slowly than whites; Blacks’ nerve endings are less sensitive than whites’; Black people’s blood coagulates more quickly than whites’; Whites have larger brains than blacks; Whites are less susceptible to heart disease than blacks; Blacks are less likely to contract spinal cord diseases; Whites have a bet…

I mean, as you hinted there are at least a few things on that list that are true. We’re in a weird period of time where people are desperate to ignore any differences between races but they absolutely exist as one would expect due to different evolutionary pressures. I don’t know how you’d go about testing some of those and many shouldn’t matter to doctors, but I personally think the differences between us are fascin…

> We’re in a weird period of time where people are desperate to ignore any differences between races but they absolutely exist as one would expect due to different evolutionary pressures.

This isn't really the case because 'races' aren't biologically definable categories, and hence have no direct relevance to evolution. There can be correlations between a person's assigned racial category in a given culture and certain biological features, such as e.g. propensity for sickle cell anaemia. However, this is just because there can be loose correlations between this category (which is usually assigned based on superficial features of appearance and cultural characteristics) and the areas of the world where the person's ancestors hail from. No serious scientific study of human difference pays any attention to race, as it is a largely arbitrary and culturally specific construct.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#274

Post by Sharlin »

DavidSJ wrote: post #222
King-Aaron wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm afraid it's the case that most all surgeries on infants (circumcision) are elective and performed for aesthetic reasons Circumcision is awful, for sure. However am I reading your comment correctly in that you think that "most all surgeries on infants are elective and performed for aesthetic reasons"? Because with my little one, he's had to undergo some pretty invasive procedures in his short life so far that ar…

Circumcisions are "most all" surgeries on infants (in the US), since they are sadly done routinely on something like a quarter of them (half of anatomic boys).

In the US, yes… although I wonder whether non-MGM surgeries on infants are rare enough that the large number of circumcisions made in the US (and a bunch of smaller countries) actually make them the most common infant surgery worldwide.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#275

Post by archon1410 »

causality0 wrote: post #165

Most people are familiar with the sound of a baby crying, and they think that's the worst sound a baby makes. It isn't. A normal baby's cry sounds absolutely nothing like a baby screaming in agony, which is a fact I discovered the first (and last) time I saw a video of a circumcision. Today we look back and can't imagine how people of centuries ago saw things like slavery and religious oppression as normal. Sometimes…

and also "that civilization which tortured billions of animals in factory farms for the daily pleasure". the past and present were and are barbaric for a whole clusterfuck, we shouldn't shortsell it as a single-issue failing.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#276

Post by archon1410 »

momenti wrote: post #242
causality0 wrote: post #165

Most people are familiar with the sound of a baby crying, and they think that's the worst sound a baby makes. It isn't. A normal baby's cry sounds absolutely nothing like a baby screaming in agony, which is a fact I discovered the first (and last) time I saw a video of a circumcision. Today we look back and can't imagine how people of centuries ago saw things like slavery and religious oppression as normal. Sometimes…

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

> This inflicted pain and damage [...] is a non-issue.

hmmmm.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#277

Post by wruza »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #251
wruza wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody can complain about their treatment if they can't remember having it Some stories are circulating about people having intense panic attacks, psychoses and sometimes becoming suicidal. Are these just myths and legends?

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. The odds are that I don't know the answer.

There are numerous stories (maybe urban legends) about people suffering from aforementioned psychiatric issues after waking up amidst surgery but being not able to remember it afterwards. Curious if it is true or not, cause that casts a shadow on “no memories no problem” idea.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#278

Post by LocalH »

momenti wrote: post #242
causality0 wrote: post #165

Most people are familiar with the sound of a baby crying, and they think that's the worst sound a baby makes. It isn't. A normal baby's cry sounds absolutely nothing like a baby screaming in agony, which is a fact I discovered the first (and last) time I saw a video of a circumcision. Today we look back and can't imagine how people of centuries ago saw things like slavery and religious oppression as normal. Sometimes…

This inflicted pain and damage appears to have no significant impact on adult quality of life though. Circumcision may also even reduce the bacterial load and hence reduce chances of infections and cancer: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/10/acc-is-infant-circumci... It's a non-issue.

Genital mutilation is abhorrent. End of story.

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#279

Post by LocalH »

momenti wrote: post #256
lordwarnut wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a form of genital mutilation. It would be wrong to call it a non-issue. It is moral one at the least. I have no issue with consenting adults getting circumcised for what ever reason they want too. A baby, however, cannot possibly consent to such a thing.

What matters the most is the cohesion, functioning and productivity of society, which is unaffected by circumcision. The notion of consent is arbitrary. You could also regard religious cults as primary, then you would need their consent to imposing your personal aesthetics.

That mindset could be used to justify all sorts of barbarism. The beginning of humanity's downfall was when we invented "society"

Re: Infants' sense of pain is recognized, finally (1987)

#280

Post by LocalH »

tsol wrote: post #174
natroniks wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a circumcised male who has decided to have all 3 male children circumcised. As a Jew, if I may weigh on this, you have my background for an conflicts or biases. Also, maybe content warning is in order for genital mutiliation. 1) It is absolutely not common practice to allow a mohel to orally suck the blood out of an infant's penis. If it's practiced at all, it is only in extremely fringe groups of Jews, not just…

It's sad you have to explain all of this. For some reason casual bigotry is now considered acceptable if it's for the sake of what they believe is a good cause. That's a shift I've noticed recently, as a member of a religion that gets a lot of hate. It portends sad things for our society

Attacking religious belief should not be considered within "bigotry", outside of situations like ethnically Jewish people (and their religious beliefs and practices should not enjoy special protection, but their actual ethnicity should).
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