No, there is no evident research saying it is bad to get rid of it. I get the whole consent opinion. However, I do not think it affects the child in such a dramtic way that it even matters.
If most people decided that surgically removing portions of your nipples was good for 'hygiene' or because of some 2,000 year old book they happened to believe in would that be okay? What about some other body part? See how ridiculous this is? And it's not even like circumcision is the norm anymore for babies since in 2009 only 32.5% of parents actually got their kids 'cut.' Unless something radically changes in 20 years people are going to wonder what's wrong with all these white people with weird looking genitals, not the other way around.