A recent [1994] survey by Garry and published in OBG Management found that only 14 percent of US obstetricians who are circumcisers use any form of anesthesia for the surgery. A similar study by Stang et al. in 1998 found that only 25 percent of OBs, 56 percent of family practitioners, and 71 percent of pediatricians surveyed use anesthesia.  Howard et al. reported in 1998 that 26 percent of circumcision training programs do not train doctors to use anesthesia/analgesia. Circumcision Information and Resource Pages (CIRP)

For many years the mainstream medical orthodoxy, put forth after it was no longer acceptable to torture children in the name of "moral hygiene," was that babies don't feel pain. It wasn't until 1978 that researchers even suggested using anesthetic during circumcision, and even today, most medical circumcisions are performed without anesthesia, according to the AMA [2005] Male Circumcision in the USA: A Human Rights Primer by Rich Winkel