Precocious puberty

Precocious puberty means early puberty.

Types and causes

Early pubic hair, breast, or genitaldevelopment may result from normal but early maturation or from several abnormal conditions. Early puberty which is normal in every way except age is termed idiopathic central precocious puberty. It may be partial or transient. Central puberty can also occur prematurely if the inhibitory system of the brain is damaged, or a hypothalamic hematomaproduces pulsatile gonadotropin-releasing hormone(GnRH). Secondary sexual development induced by sex steroidsfrom other abnormal sources (gonadalor adrenaltumors, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, etc.) is referred to as peripheral precocious puberty or precocious pseudopuberty.

Clinical significance

Early sexual development deserves evaluation because it may :

1. induce early bone maturationand reduce eventual adult height,
2. cause significant social problems, or
3. indicate the presence of a tumor or other serious problem.

Measures

No single age limit reliably separates normal from abnormal processes, but the following age thresholds for evaluation will minimize the risk of missing a significant problem:

• Pubic hairor genital enlargement in boys with onset before 9 years.
• Breast development in boys before appearance of pubic hair and testicularenlargement.
• Pubic hair before 8 or breast development in girls with onset before 7 years.
• Vaginal bleedingin girls before 10 years.

Suggested causes: Environmental estrogens, sedentary lifestyle, and obesity

Other notes

Medical evaluation is sometimes necessary to recognize the few children with serious conditions from the majority who have entered puberty early but are still medically normal.

Children (esp. girls) who are obeseare more likely to physically mature earlier.

Precocious puberty can make a child able to conceive when very young. Both sexes have become parents before age 10. The youngest mother on record is Lina Medina, who gave birth at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 21 days.

See also

• Delayed puberty
• Lina Medina, youngest mother

References

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External links

• University of Michigan
• NIH/Medline
• eMedicine

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precocious+puberty Wikipedia article Precocious puberty.