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BOSTON (Reuters) - The author of a new study on males born with a deformity of the penis known as cloacal exstrophy suggested on Wednesday that the children should be brought up as boys, not girls as doctors have recommended in the past.
Many children with the condition had surgery to make them look like girls, and parents were told by doctors to treat them like girls and never reveal that, genetically, they were male.
Study author, John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, called for a re-examination of those recommendations, saying: "We suggest (doctors) strongly consider counseling families to raise the children as males, and recommend penile reconstruction at a later age."
Children with cloacal exstrophy may be born with little or no penis. The condition appears in one out of every 400,000 births.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed 16 cases and found that most of the children began behaving like boys no matter how they were raised. Of the 14 raised as girls, many resisted being dressed like girls after age 4.
Four of the 14 declared themselves male between the ages of 7 and 12, before they learned they were born male. In three of the four cases, study co-author William Rainer told Reuters, the attitude shift took place within hours, sometimes minutes.
One child whose first and middle name had a male variant immediately began using the male version of his name, said Rainer of Johns Hopkins and the University of Oklahoma.
Four other children began thinking of themselves as males after being told they were genetically male, at ages ranging from 5 to 18.
"They said, 'When mom and dad said I was a boy, it all made sense. Then I realized it was true. Then it just happened,"' Rainer recalled. "Children transition extraordinarily rapidly."
Reuters
Many children with the condition had surgery to make them look like girls, and parents were told by doctors to treat them like girls and never reveal that, genetically, they were male.
Study author, John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, called for a re-examination of those recommendations, saying: "We suggest (doctors) strongly consider counseling families to raise the children as males, and recommend penile reconstruction at a later age."
Children with cloacal exstrophy may be born with little or no penis. The condition appears in one out of every 400,000 births.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed 16 cases and found that most of the children began behaving like boys no matter how they were raised. Of the 14 raised as girls, many resisted being dressed like girls after age 4.
Four of the 14 declared themselves male between the ages of 7 and 12, before they learned they were born male. In three of the four cases, study co-author William Rainer told Reuters, the attitude shift took place within hours, sometimes minutes.
One child whose first and middle name had a male variant immediately began using the male version of his name, said Rainer of Johns Hopkins and the University of Oklahoma.
Four other children began thinking of themselves as males after being told they were genetically male, at ages ranging from 5 to 18.
"They said, 'When mom and dad said I was a boy, it all made sense. Then I realized it was true. Then it just happened,"' Rainer recalled. "Children transition extraordinarily rapidly."
Reuters
