It is common practice for boys to be circumcised in America (Picture: Getty)

A nurse is accused of forcibly tearing a baby’s foreskin ‘all the way back’ after he was brought in with a vomiting problem.

The parents of Leon Jude Parks are suing the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta following the incident on February 5 2016.

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A lawsuit, filed on January 10, alleges that a doctor ordered Parks undergo tests for blood and urine using a catheter to make sure nothing was obstructing his bowel because he had been vomiting often and it was of disturbing color.

It was then that the doctor left the room and two nurses entered.


‘One of them took off Jude’s diaper, apparently to obtain a urine specimen, and, without comment and without asking permission to do so, forcibly tore and retracted his foreskin all the way back off his glans, to which it was naturally attached, so that one could see the entire head of the penis,’ part of the lawsuit reads.

Graphic shows how common circumcision in newborn boys is in America (Picture: Intact America)

‘This caused the end of Jude’s penis to become bloody. Jude started screaming. Neither [his mom or grandmother] had ever heard him scream like that before. Neither has heard him scream that way since.’



Staff allegedly claimed that retracting the foreskin of infants for such procedures is standard practice. They also allegedly told Parks’ mother that leaving him uncircumcised risks infection.

The lawsuit lists numerous medical journals and research stressing the importance of leaving the foreskin to separate from the glans naturally (a process that usually happens around 10.5 years after birth).

The complaint alleges that the nurse committed a battery upon Parks, and that she committed nursing malpractice by tearing the foreskin from the glans.

It also accuses the nurse and the nurse’s supervisor of intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon the child’s mother, and that Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta willfully, wantonly, and recklessly established policies and procedures that requires its nurses to forcibly retract boys’ foreskins.

The lawsuit adds: ‘Intentional, forceful retraction of his foreskin without permission of his mother was an offensive touching and constituted a battery, which caused him damage. As a direct result of the defendant’s battery upon him, Jude suffered severe physical and mental pain and suffering and sustained permanent damage to his penis.

‘Nevertheless, despite these indisputable facts and knowledge, defendant Children’s at all times relevant hereto had, and still has, a reckless and substandard policy of malpractice that requires nurses to forcibly retract the foreskins of infant boys to insert urinary catheters and to retract the foreskins of infant boys at each diaper change and bath “to prevent phimosis”, despite the fact that such actions not only do not “prevent phimosis” but can actually cause iatrogenically acquired phimosis (inability to retract the foreskin).’

Georganne Chapin, executive director of Intact America the nation’s largest anti-circumcision advocacy group, told Metro US: ‘Many parents and American medical professionals do not know that an intact baby’s foreskin is tightly attached to the penis glans, and that forcing it back is excruciating to the baby and damages his penis.’

Georganne says she regularly is contacted by parents whose sons’ foreskins have been similarly retracted.

Metro US has contacted Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for comment.