Don’t do it just because they think she’s a boy. People aren’t very bright that way. No matter how girly I dressed my daughter, people often called her a boy until her hair started to grow. Now they call my three-year-old son a girl just because he has hair down to his shoulders—even when he’s wearing his Bob the Builder overalls and playing with a toy bulldozer.
Skerri: At least where I’m from, the ears are pierced either in the hospital (as soon as baby is born), or by the pediatrician (in the safe hygienic place of his/her office). The earrings used are always hypoallergenic, usually high karat gold. The parents and the rest of the family are usually taking care of the holes and making sure it heals properly. My view is that in many cases, the desire of some parents to have the ears pierced will also make them more cautious and do follow up care better than a crazy teenage would do.
If it gets infected, I assume they take off the earrings and treat the infection.
My mother made me wait until I was 12 (a begging and pleading 12) to get my ears pierced. I was so excited! She wouldn’t let me get my ears double pierced until I was 18, and I was glad she made me wait - I had decided by then that I didn’t want any other holes in my ears.
In my mother’s world, babies with pierced ears were from redneck families (this is my mother’s opinion!). Not having kids, I can’t see how it matters when they get pierced.
I worked in a boutique many, many, many moons ago and 6 months was our age limit, though it was also noted that the procedure was done at the discretion of the clerk. And I took full advantage of that right. I wouldn’t pierce children under the age of 4 or 5 at all, as I just didn’t feel they had even the tiniest of understanding of what was coming. Infants were a definite no-no for me just because I couldn’t stand to inflict pain on something so helpless. Likewise, I would also turn away customers if they came in with a child (regardless of age) who was too scared or crying and screaming before I even swabbed their earlobe. My management always sided with me when a complaint was registered, and I also got tons of referrals from other happy customers.
I second the motion recommending pink headbands. Then, if they still question the sex of your daughter, you can always shoot them in the middle of the forehead with them like a rubber band!! 
Syl
My ears were pierced when I was about 6 months old.
And look how I turned out! 
twitch twitch
One risk is that the holes will not remain centered. My ears were peirced when I was 7 and the holes are too close to the edge by the time I was 14.
I begged my mother to pierce my ears starting at age 5. She made me wait until I was 7.
I don’t like it (like ivylass, I think it’s barbaric), but hey, do what you want. I wonder about how many earlobes get torn when the earring gets caught on something, though.
With my own kid, I would worry a lot about infection; I had many, and finally figured out that surgical steel was the only thing I could wear with impunity. (Mom finally submitted to my pleas in 6th grade, and they immediately become infected and closed. I did it again in 8th grade, and eventually got 5–while I was living out of the country at age 16 and she couldn’t tell me no.)
I wouldn’t pierce a baby’s ears simply because of the practicalities like having to be careful that the baby never gets an earring out of her ear and in her mouth.
Not necessarily true; the skin may well grow right through the hole and heal like that, leaving a permanent hole that will never close.
I plan on waiting until my daughter is old enough to tell me that she wants her ears pierced, and until she is old enough to take care of them before she can get them done.
I’m not a big fan of piercing babies ears. If you’re going to do that, why not pierce their nose? I don’t see much of a difference, except that 99.9% of people wouldn’t dare take a 6 month in to get their nose pierced, while there are numerous people who take their kids to the mall to get a stud gunned through their earlobe.
Mange, true, that happened to my ears (basically no earrings for 4-5 years, still open holes), but I always thought that was the exception rather than the norm.
angelicate, probably because the nose carries slightly more risks than just piercing the ears?
I remember one mom who wouldn’t consider piercing her 2 year old daughter’s ears because that would be “disfiguring her without her consent” but went on to tell me that she wanted her baby circumcised (by me) if it was a boy. She had another girl, so I didn’t have to face that dilemma.
I never really enjoyed doing circumcisions. I was one of the first docs to use an anesthetic block at my hospital for them, tho. The boys hollered a LOT less.
Sorry for the hijack.
I’m a guy, so I don’t get ear piercings all that much to begin with.
But personally I think it’s wrong. The kid doesn’t care what the people think, why should you train it young to do so?
It doesn’t hurt a thing that a few people say “aww… what a cute boy!” It’s not forever, in not too long it’ll be obvious it’s a girl.
Unless of course a parent cares about what others think above the concern for the child’s own pain and confusion while it is having a piece of metal punched through it’s ear.
“The pain”? For crying out loud, people, getting your earlobes pierced does not hurt all that much!
My mom let me get my first pair of earlobe piercings when I was in the second grade, after discussing with me the care necessary and the recovery. When I was sixteen I got another pair, again with my mother’s consent. The pain was so negligable that I had forgotten it from my second-grade year, and only commented “Hey, it feels like I was tagged like a wild animal.”
My concern, like that of many others here, is the thought of scratches, pulls, germs, and such. You would have to take care of the fresh piercings yourself, since your daughter is too young to do it. Plus you’d have to be constantly aware of the fact that she had two small, sharp, easily swallowable objects within easy grabbing distance all the time.
In my opinion, there are far easier ways of making it clear that your daughter is a girl. And furthermore, does it really matter at this age if random strangers mistake her for a boy?
Not to mention that piercing guns are not sterile in any way and the baby can catch a disease (like hepatitis or aids)… I imagine body piercing studios (where they autoclave equipment and are careful) wouldn’t pierce little children. The alternative (a gun) is unacceptable because of the risk. I mean, it’s not a necessity, so why take that chance? Not to mention that piercing studs (with butterfly backs) are difficult to clean properly and why risk the chance of the baby getting an infection and possibly having it spread, requiring antiboitics, etc. Not worth it at all, in my oh-so-humble opinion.
A friend of mine got her 3 month old girl’s ears pierced for the very reason mentioned in the OP. I was disappointed in her for it because she knows that piercing guns cannot be sterilized. She risked the health of her baby so that people wouldn’t confuse her for a boy. What the hell does it matter?
People confused my baby for a boy sometimes. If she was in pink, they guessed right, but otherwise… meh. Who cares.
plain_jane is absolutely right. A piercing gun is a potential hepatitus machine that is impossible to properly sterilize in an autoclave, and inserts jewlery ill-suited for proper healing. Don’t allow anyone to pierce you or your baby with one.
If one was absolutley bound and determined, a reputable body piercer would be the way to go, although I myself wouldn’t have pierced an infant. Not that many came in the shop.
-prav, ace body piercer (retired)
My mother had my ears pierced when I was 4, because she was tired of people mistaking me for a boy. I don’t remember anything about it except screaming in pain the rest of the time we were out. I think it was just that I didn’t fully understand what was going on, and it scared me. So, from my experience, I think it might be better to wait until a child can at least understand what is going on.
It obviously doesn’t bother me now that I am an adult, and I added another set on my own later. I just don’t think it is something that I would do if I ever have children. Although, I was the envy of all of my friends who had to wait until they were in high school to have it done.
That’s one reason I wouldn’t do it to a baby. The other reason is that unlike an adult or older child who gets their earring caught on their clothing or lbanketa, a baby doesn’t know enough to stop moving their head in attempts to get free. I’d be surprised if a baby ripping the earring out because of this was a rare occurance.
Then there’s infection. I’ve had my ears pieced somewhere in the neighborhood of six times (between ages of 7 and 18) because I never found anything I wasn’t allergic to. Silver, stainless steel, gold, plastic, hypo-whatever…it always got infected within a month even though I cleaned the holes several times a day. And it some times hurt a day or two before there was an noticiable redness or puss. An 7-year-old can tell you that their ears don’t feel right, but an infant can’t…
Hmmm…usually leave letters out of words, not add a couple :rolleyes: that’s “blanket” there.
My aunt was an RN, and she pierced my ears at home with a sterile surgical needle and inserted tiny 24-carat gold hoops. (These hoops did not leave my ears until I was 12 or so.) I was about 6 or 7 months old, and I don’t remember this at all. My mother says I didn’t even cry- I just looked confused. She also says there was never any problem with infection, since she took good care of the piercings, and I never tried tugging them out. Throughout grade school, almost every girl I saw had pereced ears. When in junior high, a friend was finally allowed to get her ears pierced, and I thought this was the weirdest thing in the world. Her parents didn’t do it when she was little? They wanted her to wait? Why?! Most other people I knew thought it was sorta weird as well. In my family, that’s just how it was done, and from what I experienced growing up, that’s how most other families worked, too- when your baby girl is 6 or so months old, you get her ears pierced. No big deal.
I can see where people are coming from, though- babies do get infections, they do pull at things, and they love to swallow tiny objects. But I don’t understand this fear of pain- it’s really not bad at all, and most babies forget it extremely quickly. And there’s no feeling left out because all her friends can wear earrings and she can’t.
Slightly off-topic, how prevalent are pierced ears for women in the US? How about the rest of the world? When did this practice of ear-piercing start? And at what age was it usually performed? Anybody know? I’m a poor googler- I just keep getting body-piercing FAQs.