The study found that the early trauma of circumcision is radically detrimental for the emotional development of males; according to the study the effects of circumcision extend beyond the immediate impact or even beyond the known post-traumatic disorder – from which one can recover in time – to a development of a more chronic and permanent personality disorder. The study found that circumcised men were 60% more likely to suffer from alexithymia (Greek word – “having no words for feelings) a condition that affects one’s ability to identify, feel and process emotions.

People suffering from alexithymia also exhibit detachment, emotional unavailability and lack of empathy. Severe forms of alexithymia may retard the development of language and social skills. Another central symptom of alexithymia is impulsivity, which is linked to violence.

Often the circumcised fathers want their sons to “look alike;” but authors say, this might be an unconscious urge to make the sons to also “feel alike.” The generational pain-infliction thus, perpetuates in the society rationalized by “like father, like son syndrome.”

Circumcised men in the study were 4.53 times more likely to use an erectile dysfunction drug.

Authors speculate that if the results of the study find external validity in the society at large, then it should have mass-scale repercussions on mental health in the US, and a concern for public health at large.

Source: Alexithymia and Circumcision Trauma: A Preliminary Investigation

Finally, in 1996 The U.S. Congress passed a Law Banning Female Circumcision:

HR: 941 “Sec. 116. Female genital mutilation

“(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

This means 0 tolerance to religious Muslim ritual in this country;  any pricking or excision – even as minor as letting down one drop of blood – will put the parents to jail.

Double Standard: Male – the Disposable Gender

Why is female genitalia protected by law, venerated in arts and poetry, engaged in “vagina monologues” and male genitalia disposed in bio-hazardous waste in hospitals?  How many years it will take before the U.S. recognizes male genital cutting as mutilation? Will people ever see that there is in fact symmetry between male and female genital cutting? (Some forms of female cutting are much less severe than male circumcision).

Asymmetry #1. Baby boys do not have the same protection by law. When it comes to male cutting, it’s the parents’ right. When it comes to female cutting (no matter how light in form) it’s the state’s right.

Asymmetry # 2. Removing tissue from female genitalia is a health hazard. Removing tissue from male genitalia is a profound health measure.

How can this be? Embriologically they are the same tissue with same functions: protective, immunological, sexual.

Shouldn’t children, both male and female, have right to their full body and genitalia?

Gatto’s  Bill:  AB_768 is a Violation of Equal Protection:

Criminalizing female genital cutting and allowing male genital cutting is discriminatory. The international law including, Article 13 of the United Nations Charter, as well as Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.”

For those who think that male circumcision is minor procedure compared to female circumcision please take a look at the photos by clicking the link below. The photos are of explicit and graphic content – please use discretion.

Infant circumcision photos[explicit content - please use discretion]

Theories of Prevention

No parent should ever say “I wish I’d known”

Birth Complications

Learning Problems

ADHD

Anemia

Autism

SIDS

by Medical Anthropologist Astrik Vardanyan

Group discussions with Doctor of Psychology Lisa Manuelian

Lectures are held at Artek Child Daycare, 546 West Broadway,  Glendale, CA  91204 every last Wednesday of each month and are free to our members.

Become a member to attend and support our organization’s efforts.

Please call haikProject at 818-392-HAIK (4245) or email  info@haikproject.org for more information.

While all of us will accept that birth is a natural event, most of us associate it with hospital, medicine, and technology. However, few of us realize that high-technology interventions may disrupt and alter the naturally unfolding physiological process of childbirth.

Most women are unaware of the potential physical and emotional consequences of highly medicalized routine of the hospital birth. Through medical anthropology I explored the various cultural practices surrounding reproduction and women’s health. The cross-cultural comparison and my three unnecessary and preventable Caesarian deliveries in the U.S. hospitals profoundly changed my outlook as a professional and as a mother.

Many women repent submitting themselves to the procedures that restrain their ability to deliver naturally. These procedures rob from women what could have been the most natural and empowering experience of their lives as a woman. Through years of research, it became clear to me that the protocols imposed on women entering the U.S. hospitals are profit-driven and defensive. These practices are not sound science. The efficacy and reliability of medicalized birth is at best questionable and at worst devalues the human birth experience. In retrospect, I, too regret all three Caesarians!

I wish I had known better…

Like me, millions of women each year entirely trust and rely on hospital protocols in the time of their childbirth.

Through haikProject’s lecture series I demonstrate that the routine interventions of obstetrical practices are often times not derived from evidence-based science; in fact, many aspects of mainstream hospital childbirth protocols go against scientific findings, natural laws, and evolutionary development of human body. Some permanently harm the mother and the child.

This is not to say that medical interventions have no place in childbirth; in fact, they can be life-saving! However, these interventions should be used with caution and only in emergencies – not routinely, and certainly not in normal deliveries! Here are some facts to illustrate my point.

In 2010 Amnesty International (AI) issued a report stating that the U.S. deaths from pregnancy and childbirth have doubled in the past 20 years reaching to a scandalous number. While women of color and low income are at higher risk, Larry Cox, the executive director of AI warns that “every woman who is going though pregnancy in this country is at risk.” [i]

According to WHO’s report, the U.S. maternal and infant mortality rates rank as one of the highest among the industrialized world; [ii] 49 other countries have lower birth-related death rates, [iii], [iv] and about 30 other countries have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S.[v], [vi] This is despite the highest per capita spending on health care in the U.S.[vii]

Why is this discrepancy!

While many birth-related deaths result from lack of good medical care, other adverse events are caused by the overuse of childbirth technology. [viii] This is why the WHO has repeatedly urged the U.S. to employ midwife-based system of maternity care.[ix]

Which childbirth practices are safe? Which should be avoided? Which location is best for your own case? We invite you to explore these questions and concerns in our comprehensive on-going lecture series!

Knowledge is the key to happy parenthood. Educate yourself for the well-being of your child! Attend our seminars or call for individual counselling.

Our latest flyer can serve as a quick reference for you and your friends for getting familiar with 5 Crucial Aspects of Childbirth and Childcare.
Click to download or print the PDF

[i] Doubling of maternal deaths in U.S. ‘scandalous,’ rights group says. CNN Health. Available at: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-03-12/health/maternal.mortality_1_maternal-deaths-deaths-and-complications-pregnancy?_s=PM:HEALTH
[ii] The World Health Report 2005 – make every mother and child count . Available at: http://www.who.int/whr/2005/en/index.html
[iii] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Maternal Mortality—United States, 1982-1996”, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 47.34, 1998.
[iv] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Safe Motherhood, Promoting Health for Women Before, During and After Pregnancy”, 2008. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/pdf/drh.pdf
[v] World Health Organization. “The World Health Report: Make Every Mother and Child Count,” 2005. Available at: http://www.who.int.whr/2005/en
[vi] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.htm
[vii]  Sakala and Corry, Evidence-Based Maternity Care:10
[viii] Somkins G. Midwifery in the U.S. Mothering 2011, May Available at: http://www.mothering.com/pregnancy-birth/midwifery-in-the-united-states
[ix] Mothering Magazine, Jan/Feb. 1990

The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice but is for educational purposes only. You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.

Umbilical cord cutting is one of the central issues of haikProject. Immediate Cord Clamping (ICC) and premature severing of the cord go against the evolutionary mechanisms of human organism and may potentially pose harm to the fragile brain, heart and lungs of the neonate. Akin to circumcision trauma, ICC is one of the most common, but fortunately, easily preventable birth traumas in today’s typical hospital birth.

My husband, psychiatrist Arthur Pogosyan and I have tried to educate childbirth professionals and parental community on the crucial timing of umbilical cord cutting. When we first touched upon the harms of ICC, we sounded too unorthodox for medical community both in the U.S. and in Armenia. While there has been some positive shift in the discourse of umbilical cord in medical literature, this change is very slow. The health of millions of babies is being unnecessarily jeopardized by this unscientific practice. haikProject calls professional and parental community to join us in our efforts to change the harmful intervention of ICC.

Another thing very injurious to the child, is the tying and cutting of the navel string too soon; which should always be left till the child has not only repeatedly breathed but till all pulsation in the cord ceases. As otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a portion of the blood being left in the placenta, which ought to have been in the child.

Erasmus Darwin

The physiological functions of umbilical cord and placenta

When the infant is born, umbilical cord pulsates to transfuse the placental oxygen-rich blood into the baby. This ensures continuous supply of oxygen to the brain before neonate’s natural mechanism switches from placental oxygenation to pulmonary (lung) oxygenation. To put it simply, before the baby’s lungs start to fully function, the placental blood supplies the newborn with oxygen for optimal survival.

Physiological (natural) cord closure

Anywhere between 5-20 minutes the cord vessels occlude (“clamp”) naturally due to complex physiological processes: upon interaction with cold air, a substance present in the cord, called Wharton’s jelly, swells around the umbilical artery and causes vasoconstriction and natural clamping occurs. In other words, if left without external interventions (artificial cord clamp) cord arteries will close physiologically shortly after birth. The visible signs of physiological occlusion are:

• pulsation in the cord ceases
• the cord collapses

Immediate (premature) cord clamping

In modern hospitals an artificial clamp is placed on a still pulsating umbilical cord seconds after the baby is born and often, before the baby’s first breath is initiated. The amputation of the still functioning placenta from the child cuts off the oxygen-rich blood transfusion to the child, depriving the neonate from up to half of the volume of valuable blood supply. This blood loss in varying degrees, depending on the timing of the cord clamping, may potentially result in multiple adverse outcomes. If the neonate’s first breath is not initiated and pulmonary oxygenation is yet not well established, even the brief disruption of vital oxygen supply to the neonate can lead to irreversible impairment – from subtle to serious.

Our seminar on Immediate Cord Clamping examines the scientific literature on the harms of this intervention, from anemia to permanent hypoxic brain damage, to mental retardation and/or possible development of autism. Learn how to prevent any harm to your newborn. Attend our seminars or call for individual counselling.

Our latest flyer can serve as a quick reference for you and your friends for getting familiar with 5 Crucial Aspects of Childbirth and Childcare.
Click to download or print the PDF

Further readings

Mercer, J.S.; Vohr, B.R.; McGrath, M.M.; Padbury, J.F.; Wallach, M.; Oh, W. (2006). “Delayed cord clamping in very preterm infants reduces the incidence of intraventricular hemorrhage and late-onset sepsis: a randomized, controlled trial”. Pediatrics 117 (4): 1235–42.

Davis L., McDonald S.R.M., Examination of the Newborn and Neonatal Health: A Multidimensional Approach. 2008(116-17). Churchill Livingstone

Hutton EK, Hassan ES (March 2007). “Late vs early clamping of the umbilical cord in full-term neonates: systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials”. JAMA 297 (11): 1241–52.

Mankind’s first natural stem cell transplant. Jose N. Tolosa, Dong-Hyuk Park, David J. Eve, Stephen K. Klasko, Cesario V. Borlongan, Paul R. Sanberg. Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine 2010; 14(3): 488-495.

The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice but is for educational purposes only. You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.

haikProject is dedicated to educate medical professionals and parental community on this harmful medical intervention.

WHAT IS CIRCUMCISION?

Circumcision is the cutting off of the fold of skin that normally covers and protects the glans (head) of the penis. This double layer of skin, the prepuce, is commonly known as the foreskin.

WHY IS THE FORESKIN THERE?

The foreskin comprises as much as half, or more, of the penile skin system and has three known functions: protective, sensory, and sexual. During infancy, the foreskin is attached to the glans and protects it from urine, feces, and abrasions from diapers. Throughout life, the foreskin keeps the glans soft and moist and protects it from trauma and injury. Without this protection, the glans becomes dry, calloused, and desensitized from exposure and chafing. Specialized nerve endings in the foreskin enhance sexual pleasure.
“The foreskin protects the glans throughout life.” American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)

WHEN AND WHY DID DOCTORS IN THE U.S. START CIRCUMCISING BABIES?

Doctors in the English-speaking countries started circumcising babies in the mid-1800s “to prevent masturbation,” which was blamed for causing many diseases, including epilepsy, tuberculosis, and insanity. Other reasons have been given since then, but all of them, including the claim that circumcision prevents cancer of the penis, cancer of the cervix, and venereal diseases, have been disproven.

We now know that the foreskin is a normal, sensitive, functional part of the body.

IS CIRCUMCISION PAINFUL?

Yes. Circumcision is extremely painful – and traumatic – for a baby. Just being strapped down is frightening for a baby. The often repeated statement that babies can’t feel pain is not true. Babies are as sensitive to pain as anyone else. Most babies scream frantically when their foreskin is cut off. Some defecate. Some lapse into a coma. The reason some babies don’t cry when they are circumcised, is that they can’t cry because they are in a state of shock. Most babies are circumcised without anesthesia. Anesthetics injected into the penis don’t always work.

DOES CIRCUMCISION HAVE RISKS?

Yes. Like any other surgery, circumcision has risks. They include: excessive bleeding, infection, complications from anesthesia, surgical mistakes, including loss of glans and loss of entire penis, and in rare cases – death.
Many circumcised males suffer from: extensive scarring, skin tags and skin bridges, tearing and bleeding at the scar site, curvature of the penis, tight, painful erections, difficulty ejaculating, impotence, feelings of having been violated, feelings of having been mutilated.
All circumcised males lose some or most of the sensitivity in their glans and all of the sensitivity in their foreskin.

IS CIRCUMCISION HARMFUL?

Circumcision amputates approximately 50% of the heavily innervated tissue of the penis that is a specific erogenous zone. Circumcision creates an abnormal physical appearance with disfiguring scar encircling the shaft and the glans penis permanently exposed to drying, abrasion, and mechanical injury.

PARENTS HAVE NEW CONCERNS

More and more parents – including Jewish & Muslim parents – are questioning the wisdom of subjecting their baby to the pain and risks of circumcision and its life-long consequences. Today parents are wondering if they have the right to consent to the irreversible amputation of a healthy, normal, sensitive, functional part of their baby’s penis – an amputation that experts regard not just as unnecessary, but as contraindicated. More and more parents are becoming truly informed and, as a result, more and more parents are deciding against circumcision and are keeping their baby boys intact.

HOW DO I CARE FOR MY YOUNG SON’S INTACT PENIS?

haikProject’s comprehensive seminars teach how to care for your intact (uncircumcised) son. It is important to know that some doctors may unknowingly harm your natural son’s penis at the well-baby visit, which may cause mild to severe damage – often requiring circumcision. Parents should be vigilant to protect their baby-boy from such iatrogenic (physician caused) trauma.

Many parents who left their boy natural have questions as to how to care for their intact son in early childhood and how to instruct care to adolescents. Some boys are concerned about their tight unretractable foreskin beyond adolescence, which may result in unnecessary circumcision. This is a natural physiological unretractability, easily treated without invasive medical interventions. We have all the medical answers to promote to raise healthy intact boy.
Please attend our seminars or call for individual counselling.

Our latest flyer can serve as a quick reference for you and your friends for getting familiar with 5 Crucial Aspects of Childbirth and Childcare.
Click to download or print the PDF

The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice but is for educational purposes only. You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.

haikProject provides educational programs and continued support to women and their families to encourage prolonged nursing. Attend our seminar on breastfeeding. Call for individual counseling.

Every time I’d put my baby to my breast, it would feel as if the universe was flowing in me in a liquid form through a funnel. It felt as if my body was levitating. A few seconds of extreme sense of joy would be followed by the let down of the milk.
It turned out there was scientific explanation behind my “levitation” while nursing.
Two hormones regulate milk production: oxytocin and prolactin. The hormones secreted in the mother’s body have crucial role in physical and psychological wellbeing of the mother and the mother-child bonding. Osytocine is associated with feelings of warmth and love. Prolactin produces feelings of calm and helps a mother relax. Both hormones stimulate nurturing and caring behavior.
While for the first month or two, vigorous sucking of the newborn can leave the mother’s nipples sore, once well-established, breastfeeding can be one of the most joyous experiences in life.
Unfortunately, while most people would agree that breastfeeding is advantageous, not all would be prone to choose or be successful in breastfeeding. Too many factors may impede the delicate process of breastfeeding:

• Lack of education
• Socioeconomic problems
• Societal attitudes and practices
• Lack of social support
• Employers’ policies
• Culture-bound misconceptions and myths
• Personal misperceptions

There exists huge body of extensive research that proves compelling benefits of prolonged breastfeeding to the child and the mother. The health and wellbeing of the mother and child also reflects in the society at large.
Breastfeeding is found to be protective against:

• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
• Insulin dependent diabetes,
• Childhood cancers
• Meningitis
• Pneumonia
• Allergies
• Strep and e coli infections
• Diarrhea
• Crohn’s Disease
• Ear infections

Breastfeeding stimulates the child’s brain:

• Infants breastfed for 7-9 months have higher IQ

Breastfeeding benefits the mother:

• Reduced risk of breast cancer
• Reduced risk of ovarian and other reproductive cancers
• Reduce chance of osteoporosis
• Earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight
• Lower chance to develop post-partum depression
• Higher sense of self-worth and competence

It is important to mention that no formula, derived chemically in the lab, no matter how advanced, can duplicate the health benefits of the human milk.
haikProject will assist you to successfully initiate and continue breastfeeding. Attend our seminar. Attend our seminars or call for individual counselling.

Our latest flyer can serve as a quick reference for you and your friends for getting familiar with 5 Crucial Aspects of Childbirth and Childcare.
Click to download or print the PDF

The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice but is for educational purposes only. You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.

haikProject encourages co-sleeping and /or bed-sharing with one or both parents, as the most natural and safe way of sleeping for the first years of child’s life, if taken a few necessary precautions. There are multiple physical and psychological advantages to the child, the mother and the family to share sleep in family bed or in arm’s-reach co-sleeper (on a different surface).
Co-sleeping and/or bed-sharing is a wonderful night-time parenting practice. Before the 19th century sleeping with the child was a norm all over the world. Over half of the world’s infants still sleep with their parents.
It has been proposed that co-sleeping evolved for over 5 million years of our species. All mammalian species ensured their survival by sleeping in close proximity with their offspring. While there is no immediate risk of predators, human nervous system has evolved according to millions of years of sleeping patterns. The tiny newborn’s brain, heart and respiratory system are in tune to the mother’s or father’s breathing, movement, and skin-to-skin contact. Babies’ nervous system does not keep up with the fast-changing environmental and socio-cultural changes that instead offer solitary sleep in cribs, electronic bassinets, strollers and other gadgets.
While the US consumer Product Safety Commission warns against so-sleeping/bed-sharing, the research that they use as a basis for their recommendation has been severely criticized for methodological flaws and possible bias.
Huge body of evidence suggests the undeniable health benefits of co-sleeping and/or bed-sharing. The co-sleeping pair is an utmost symbiosis – would it be mother and child or father and child, the sleeping pair becomes one unit in many ways. Their breathing, movements and sleep-cycles are often times synchronized. Here is what researchers found:
• The vitals of co-sleeping baby are more steady; body temperature, heart rate, and breathing are stable
• Cortisol (the stress hormone) is low both in the baby and the mother. High level of stress hormone may impede the child’s healthy growth

• Co-sleeping/bed-sharing mothers breastfeed more. Breastfeeding reduces SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)
• Co-sleeping/bed-sharing mothers report getting more sleep and report getting more rest
• Maternal inspections in co-sleeping pair are frequent; maternal body movements, and breathing arouse babies in the incidents of sleep apnea, and by extension prevent SIDS

Research also found benefits that go beyond immediate impact to long-term psychological development. Co-sleeping/bed-sharing babies are found to be:

• Happier
• Less anxious
• Less likely to develop behavioral problems
• More likely to have higher self-esteem
• More contented with intimacy later in life
• More likely to be independent as adults

Attention: Co-sleeping and family bed sharing requires some precautions. Failure to follow these safety measures may put your infant at risk. Please attend our seminar for comprehensive discussion of safe sleep and baby-wearing. Attend our seminars or call for individual counselling.

Our latest flyer can serve as a quick reference for you and your friends for getting familiar with 5 Crucial Aspects of Childbirth and Childcare.
Click to download or print the PDF

Further Readings
Field, T., Touch in early development. 1995 N.J Lawrence Earlbaum and Associates
Sears W., Sears M. The Attachment Parenting Book: A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby. 2001 Little Brown and Company.
Ganju K.A., Attachment Parenting Book: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child. 1999. Atria Publishing
McKenna, J. Why babies should never sleep alone: a review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breastfeeding; Paediatr Respir Rev. 2005, June 6(2);134-52
McKenna, J. Experimental studies of infant-parent co-sleeping: mutual physiological and behavioral influences and their relevance to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). Early Hum Dev. 1994 Sep 15; 38(3):187-201
Hofer, M. Some thoughts on the transduction of experience from a developmental perspective. Psychosomatic Medicine. 1982, 44 (19)
Forbes, J.F. et al The cosleeping habits of military children. Military medicine, 1992 (196-200).

The information on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice but is for educational purposes only. You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.

Astrik Vardanyan

Co-Founder ACWF

Dr Paul Fleiss, Peidatrician,

Author of

Dr Vigen Zargaryan, Pediatrician

Dr Arthur Pogosyan, Co-Founder ACWF

Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

Dr Armen Hakopjianyan

Dr Paul Fleiss, Pediatrician

Danielle Gladding, NOCIRC of Pasadena,

Intactivist, Breast Feeding Advocate