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<< In time I think these societal and religious pressures will be seen as negatives if the mother is outside of those conformist pressures, which will further weaken the conformist grip on society.

I don't see that happening. For example, circumcision has been normalized ( in US at least ) so there is not even a need for a real pressure. And this is just one of the more interesting examples of religious dogma pervading life of non-religious individuals.

It does correlate with lower incidence of STI later in life.

Sure. Using the same logic we can say that FGM[1] reduces chances of cancer in the removed parts. It is genuinely odd argument to make that you get less chance of a disease in an organ when you remove an organ or part thereof.

[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47131052

I know two people that had to get circumcised when they were older because of issues of the foreskin restricting urinating. Both cursed their parents for not having circumcised them when they were babies.

I am responding in good faith. It is possible that there is a genetic component, but isn't prevalence of paraphimosis about 1%[1] for males over 16. Some would say circumcision for such a small gain is not the best trade-off.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459233/

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I just know the misery these two older friends of mine went through...just to give another perspective. It makes sense though that there could be a genetic disposition.

I’m trying to imagine modern medicine converging on circumcision as a best practice, in the absence of its ritual origins, and in the absence of cosmetic concerns. But I’m still convinced it’s a retcon.

Which aspect is a retcon? I am not sure if you're taking the pro or con position

I dont see medicine converging at that. Instead, in west, it is being seen as American medical oddity no one cares about.

FGM is mainly an anti-sex thing, before modern contraceptives, this conformist behaviour was used to keep population levels down by making sex painful, but now we have chemicals that can do it, so its not really required now.

I recognise aspects of religious practices was a way to keep followers healthy in the absence of what we would call modern medicine and some of the practices are environmentally driven to some degree. Circumcision is one, dusty desert like locations had limited water, making it harder to wash regularly but in hot desert like area's one's libido will increase, so its the result of trying to reduce the spread of disease. The irony is that the Langerhan cells are removed which plays a part in the immune system response, but it might be considered an attack vector for at least the HIV virus to enter the body according to other reports. What these reports show is even the medical profession are split on whose theory is correct.

I've always been informed the main reason in the past has been because blokes are lazy and didnt wash enough and some religions were so anti-sex it was a way of reducing other problems with the foreskin that can arise.

> I wonder if the stress the mother experiences through gestation impacts the mental and physical health of the baby.

There’s pretty good evidence for this already. E.g. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/stress-and-pregnancy-pren...

> In time, I expect to see COVID will have reduced the antibiotic resistance seen so commonly in hospitals, because of the routine deep cleaning regimes now employed and routine wearing of facemasks by all inside a hospital.

I’m a bit confused. For the first part, do you mean “increased antibiotic resistance” (not decreased) with the increased deep cleaning, which cannot really be perfect in an environment that has so many illnesses around? Or are tou saying that the deep cleaning is so good that all germs are killed and thus there are no chances of mutations surviving and spreading?

Antibiotics need to kill bacteria but leave human cells alive. Deep cleaning can kill everything. It's a lot easier for bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics than it is to deep cleaning.

I read somewhere that bacteria evolving to resist deep cleaning would be akin to us evolving to resist bullets.

Try surviving UV-C then, nastier than bullets!

>This is just one part of many worrying parts of modern medicine from a few decades ago.

You could say exactly the same thing about any point in the past so what makes you think now is any different ?

There is more science available, big data, ability to manufacture practically anything for not a lot of money, I love the fact I can hop online and read studies from a journal that published last week. Couldn't do that in the 90's.

Increasingly seeing a reversal or abandonment of medical theories as new studies offer new insights and present new theories.

So the trend up to WW1 was to use chemicals found in us to treat us, between WW1 and WW2, patented medicine started to appear and this is how big pharma developed. Problem is, in some cases, patented medicine is too alien to the human body, its not evolved enough and so it presents new challenges or problems, depending on your POV.

I'm not saying its perfect today, but the explosion in knowledge over the last 30years has been close to exponential, roughly inline with the silicon chip.

> I expect to see COVID will have reduced the antibiotic resistance seen so commonly in hospitals, because of the routine deep cleaning regimes now employed and routine wearing of facemasks by all inside a hospital.

Hospitals were deep cleaning even before covid? It is not like we would discovered contagious diseases with covid.