The circumcision rate for U.S. newborns was lowest in the West and highest in the Midwest in 2010, the National Center for Health Statistics reported Aug. 22.
A trend that began in the early 1980s continues to keep the West considerably below the other regions: The rate was 40.2% in 2010, compared with 58.4% in the South, 66.3% in the Northeast, and 71.0% in the Midwest, the NCHS said.
Since 1979, the circumcision rate for newborns in the West has decreased 37%. In that same period, there was almost no overall change in the Northeast, while the rate has risen slightly in the South and declined slightly in the Midwest, according to the NCHS report.
The national rate of newborn circumcision was down by 10% from 1979 (64.5%) to 2010 (58.3%). The trend over that 32-year period had rates "generally declining during the 1980s, rising in the 1990s, and declining again in the early years of the 21st century," the investigators noted. The rate increased each year from 2008 to 2010.
The report used data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey, which does not include ritual circumcisions performed outside hospitals or circumcisions performed after discharge from the birth hospitalization, they said.
