Does a child's precocious puberty need treatment?

If precocious puberty occurs in childhood, the harm will be very serious. It will cause some disorder in the hormones in the child's body, which will directly affect the child's mental immaturity and even make the child short. If precocious puberty occurs in girls, it will be even more harmful, as it will increase the risk of breast cancer in girls. So how should it be treated?

Proper diet control

Avoid overnutrition, especially avoid fatty foods, eat less sweets, but ensure protein intake, and eat more vegetables and fruits. Children who are suspected of suffering from pseudo-precocious puberty due to accidental ingestion of birth control pills should not consume nutritional foods or tonics that may contain sex hormones, nor should they use skin care products containing sex hormones. At the same time, parents should keep medicines at home in a safe place where children cannot reach them.

Increase physical activity

Particular attention should be paid to lower limb exercise, and more than 30 minutes of exercise time should be ensured every day. You can choose sports such as jogging, climbing stairs, skipping rope, and jumping rubber bands. At the beginning, you can do some activities within your ability, step by step, gradually increase the amount and intensity of exercise and persevere, so as not to lose confidence due to excessive fatigue. Exercise of the lower limbs can stimulate the cell division and proliferation of the growth plates of the epiphyseal bones of the long bones, promoting height growth. In addition, exercise plays a very positive role in regulating body weight, changing body composition, increasing muscle mass and reducing fat content.

Get enough sleep

You should get 8 hours of high-quality sleep every night to ensure that the pituitary gland can secrete sufficient growth hormone at night, which plays a very important role in promoting rapid growth and development of height.

Monitor height regularly

During treatment with growth hormone, blood IGF-1 levels and height changes should be monitored every 3 months, and if effective, continued use may be considered. Because growth hormone may promote tumor growth, it should be contraindicated in children with precocious puberty caused by tumors. Therefore, before using growth hormone, the possibility of a tumor in the body should be ruled out, or the tumor has been effectively treated and followed up for more than 1 year without signs of recurrence, then low-dose growth hormone can be used and close follow-up should be performed.

Growth hormone should be used according to bone age

It was previously believed that only patients with growth hormone deficiency could be treated with growth hormone. However, it is currently believed that the use of growth hormone can also promote height growth in some children who do not lack growth hormone, such as those with Turner syndrome and idiopathic short stature. Whether a patient can use growth hormone to promote growth treatment depends on the bone age. Whether the epiphysis is closed is the most important indicator to determine whether growth hormone can be used. Theoretically, as long as the epiphysis has not closed, there is still a chance to use growth hormone treatment. However, if a larger dose of growth hormone is used for treatment after the epiphysis has closed, it will not only fail to promote height growth, but will bring about the adverse reaction of acromegaly, making the patient's appearance become ugly.

From the article we have learned whether precocious puberty needs treatment. Once precocious puberty occurs, you must go to the hospital for treatment immediately, otherwise the symptoms will become more serious. You must also check your child's height regularly. If the height is abnormal, growth hormone must be used.