Should Piercing Your Baby's Ears Be Illegal? This Country Thinks So

The U.K. is on a roll with their bans! Currently, there's a bill in the workd for banning things like alcohol, coffee, and even tea in the United Kingdom. But this new ban is take a personal decision away from parents about their babies.

There's a petition on 38 Degrees to make it illegal for babies and toddlers to get ear piercings. They're shooting for 40,000 signatures and are very close to reaching it with 38,237. 

Since the petition has gained so much traction, Labour Party Member of Parliament, Mark Tami, is bringing forth the issue to the House of Commons.

"It is a form of child cruelty. Severe pain and fear is inflicted upon infants unnecessarily. It serves no purpose other than to satisfy the parent's vanity. Other forms of physically harming children are illegal — this should be no different," writes the author of the petition.

This is certainly not a new debate. Many parents find ear piercings harmless, arguing that the baby won't remember the few seconds of pain from the piercing. Parents also pierce their baby's ears because of customs and cultural traditions.

Other parents, on the other hand, find ear piercings on babies cruel, believing that piercings affect proper growth of ear tissue, and cause unnecessary pain to the child.

Tami explains to The Guardian, "If we allowed parents to do other things to their children's faces, like tattooing, that would be appalling, but although piercings can heal, they can still cause distorting affects on the ear, in the skin and muscle. The question is, what age is appropriate? Certainly a baby or a child has no opportunity of consenting to having the procedure done."

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends waiting until a baby has their first tetanus shot when they're two months old, to protect the child against improperly sterilized piercings and infections.

Other pediatricians warn parents to wait until the child receives all rounds of tetanus are given.

The decision from the House of Commons will certainly be very interesting, and will probably be a cause for debate among parents and the pediatric community.

Let's hope that parents use caution when piercing their baby's ears and also take into consideration the advice of pediatricians.