Early puberty is also called pubertas praecox. This is said to occur when girls reach puberty before the age of eight and boys before the age of nine. Early puberty occurs in one to two percent of children. What problems do children who enter puberty encounter early and why is it always wise to have a child with early puberty examined?
The first symptoms
Normally, boys start puberty between the ages of nine and fourteen and girls a little earlier, between the ages of eight and thirteen. The age may be slightly different for children of Asian or African background.
Physical Characteristics of Puberty:
- breast development and onset of menstruation in girls
- bigger testicles and penis for boys
- more body hair, especially pubic hair and armpit hair
- cracking voice guys.
If you want to know more about the development from child to adult and the associated stages, you can search for the Tanner scale of pediatrician James Mourilyan Tanner. The steps from child to adult are divided into five scales. You can then see which stage your child is currently in.
Always go to the doctor
Usually there is no identifiable cause for the early onset of puberty, but in 40 to 50% of boys and 5 to 10% of girls a physical cause can be found. In those cases, there may be a hormone-producing tumor. It is therefore wise to go to the doctor so that this cause can be ruled out. This will do blood tests for various hormones and in some cases more extensive research will be required, such as an X-ray (to determine bone age) and MRI research.
Disadvantages of early puberty
There are quite a few disadvantages to early puberty and the biggest disadvantage is that you grow faster if you enter puberty early. For girls, they usually only grow six cm after their first period, and it makes quite a difference whether you get your first period at the age of seven or at the age of fourteen. The consequence of early puberty is that these children are often among the smaller people as adults. Sometimes girls grow more than six centimeters after menstruation and in this case that is just a nice stroke of luck.
Children who enter puberty early also produce all kinds of hormones early. This causes them to lose their childish interests early on. They want to chat and chill while their peers are still climbing trees and playing with the Barbies. This results in little connection with peers, causing them to feel quite lonely during this emotionally difficult period.
Treatment of early puberty
If early puberty has occurred without a clearly identifiable reason, you can choose to postpone puberty. This is done with a monthly injection of hormones. This treatment lasts at least six months to a year and is only possible if the bone age, which is ahead of the calendar age in the case of early puberty, has not yet reached a certain age. The closer the bone age is to 14 years, the less the influence will be on height growth. The injection can have side effects, such as weight gain, headaches and mood swings. Puberty development stops due to hormone treatment and will resume approximately one year after stopping treatment.
For the parents and the child, it is then a matter of weighing up what is most important, because the treatment is also stressful for the child. When considering what is best, the child’s age, height and bone age play an important role.
