What department should I go to for children with precocious puberty

In our lives, many children suffer from the phenomenon of precocious puberty. In fact, there are two types of precocious puberty. One is called psychological precocity and the other is called physiological precocity. No matter which one it is, as long as it occurs before the child enters puberty, it is an abnormal manifestation. Parents must give their children timely treatment and correction in their children's lives. So, what department should children with precocious puberty go to?

1Which department should I consult for children's precocious puberty

Child health or child endocrinology.

When a child suffers from precocious puberty, anxious parents don’t know which department to go to for treatment. It is reported that if a child has precocious puberty, he or she can go to the pediatric health department or the pediatric endocrinology department. By measuring the bone age, it can be determined whether the child has precocious puberty.

2What items need to be checked for precocious puberty

1. Bone age determination

Bone age is assessed based on X-rays of the hands and wrists to determine whether bone development is advanced. Children with precocious puberty generally have a bone age that is older than their actual age.

2. CT or MRI examination

If an intracranial tumor or adrenal disease is suspected, a head or abdominal CT or MRI examination should be performed.

3. Ultrasound examination

Choose pelvic B-ultrasound to check the development of the ovaries and uterus of girls; for boys, pay attention to the testicles, adrenal cortex and other parts. If the pelvic B-ultrasound shows multiple follicles ≥4mm in the ovaries, it is precocious puberty. If a single follicle with a diameter >9mm is found, it is mostly a cyst. If the ovaries are not large and the uterus is >3.5cm in length and the endometrium is thickened, it is mostly the effect of exogenous androgens.

4. Other examinations

Other tests can be further selected based on the child's clinical manifestations. For example, if hypothyroidism is suspected, T3, T4, and TSH can be measured. Gonadal tumors have increased testosterone and estradiol concentrations. Children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia have significantly increased blood 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) and urinary 17-ketosteroid (17-KS).

3 Causes of precocious puberty in children

1. The potential for growth and development is revealed

Due to the improvement of people's living standards, the improved nutrition of this generation of children, superior family living conditions, reduced diseases and other environmental factors have fully expressed their growth and development potential, resulting in an accelerated growth and development trend, leading to the general earlier sexual development and sexual maturity of children and adolescents than the previous generation. Accelerated growth and development may be one of the main factors for the current increase in the incidence of true precocious puberty in children.

2. Environmental pollution

Recently, a large number of foreign literature reports have shown that substances discharged into the environment by the detergent, pesticide and plastic industries and their decomposition products can produce a series of environmental hormone pollutants in nature. They have estrogen-like activity, which can contaminate water, food or be absorbed through the skin. If ingested by children, they can cause abnormal development of reproductive organs and bones. If such substances act on the early embryo, it may cause sex differentiation disorder of the fetus.

3. Excessive intake of hormones

Over-nourishing

Precocious puberty is related to excessive emphasis on nourishing the body. Various "health products" and "tonic products", such as royal jelly, pollen, chicken embryo, silkworm pupae or animal colostrum, certain children's oral liquids, and many animal offal, such as animal thyroid, gonads and other endocrine glands, and tonic foods that can be used as medicine include Cordyceps sinensis, ginseng, dried longan, dried lychee, astragalus, adenophora, etc., all contain a large amount of sex hormones, and even gonadotropin-like substances. If consumed for a long time, it can cause precocious puberty in children.

Drug residues

Growth hormones, prolactin, oxytocin, etc., especially diethylstilbestrol, are added to animal feed. Fruits and vegetables may be exposed to ripening agents, especially out-of-season vegetables and fruits, such as strawberries, grapes, watermelons, tomatoes in winter, and pears, apples, oranges and peaches that are available early in late spring. Almost all of these are out-of-season or mature early with the help of "ripening agents". Eating such vegetables and fruits can cause an increase in hormone levels in children's blood. Fried foods, especially fried chicken, French fries and potato chips, cause endocrine disorders and are one of the causes of "precocious puberty". Children who visit fast food restaurants more than twice a week and frequently eat fried and puffed foods are 2.5 times more likely to suffer from precocious puberty than normal children.