Symptoms of breast development in children

Breasts can be said to be secondary sexual organs, but when children are still relatively young, there is not much difference in the breasts of boys and girls. However, after a certain age, there will be changes in body shape between boys and girls. Boys will gradually develop Adam's apples and go through a voice change period. Girls' body curves will also slowly begin to show, especially the breasts will begin to grow. What are the symptoms of breast development in children?

Infants may develop enlarged breasts on one or both sides before the age of 8, which may be tender. This kind of breast "development" phenomenon is not always precocious puberty. Most of them are just special manifestations of secondary sexual characteristics, a developmental variation phenomenon, and a self-limiting disease. It is called simple breast development in children, also known as pseudo-precocious puberty.

Simple breast development and precocious puberty in children: Under normal circumstances, the hormones in the human endocrine system are secreted in a complex and rigorous manner, with the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and gonads forming a mutually restrictive axis. Once this restriction is broken, hypersecretion of the gonads will lead to precocious puberty; otherwise, sexual underdevelopment will occur. The normal development of girls is that breast development begins at around the age of 10, menstruation begins at the age of twelve or thirteen, and the best age for menarche is around 13 and a half years old. Boys generally develop two years later than girls, with pubic hair and scrotum beginning to develop at the age of 12, and the first nocturnal emission occurring at around the age of 15. The time difference is about two and a half years. But if girls show these symptoms before the age of 8-9 and boys before the age of 9-11, it is called precocious puberty. Clinically, precocious puberty is divided into two categories: true precocious puberty and false precocious puberty. True precocious puberty refers to a developmental process that is the same as true puberty, which is not only manifested by the maturation of the internal and external reproductive systems, but is also accompanied by a growth spurt and the maturation of bone age. Pseudo-precocious puberty only manifests itself as the development of the external reproductive system, without accelerated growth and maturation of bone age. It is also called simple breast development in children.

The reasons can be summarized as follows: (1) With the improvement of living standards, children's growth and development are accelerated. Children and adolescents are generally taller than the previous generation, and their sexual development and sexual maturity tend to be advanced. According to normal puberty development in the past, breasts began to develop at the age of 12 to 13, and menarche mostly occurred at the age of 15 to 16. However, the current generation of girls develop breasts at around 10 years old and have menarche at 12 to 13 years old.

(2) Consuming food containing sex hormones or accidentally taking birth control pills. In recent years, various health products and tonics have been launched on the market. Many parents take them as an investment in their children's health to increase their nutrition and promote their growth, and often give them to their young children for long-term use. It has been confirmed that ginseng, royal jelly, pollen, chicken embryo, silkworm pupae, and growth hormone all contain a lot of sex hormones, and even gonadotropin-like substances. (3) Environmental pollution. In recent years, a large number of scholars at home and abroad have reported that due to the discharge of harmful substances and their decomposition products into the environment by detergent, pesticide and plastic industry manufacturers, a series of environmental hormone pollutants are produced in nature.