Precocious puberty in young girls

Generally speaking, girls will not show symptoms of sexual development until after the age of eight. If parents discover these symptoms in their girls before the age of eight, it proves that the girls are experiencing precocious puberty. Precocious puberty is sometimes caused by girls developing too quickly, but sometimes it is a disease. So if a girl is found to be experiencing precocious puberty, she should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment in time. Let's take a closer look at precocious puberty in young girls with the editor today.

Precocious puberty means that puberty development is significantly advanced, and precocious puberty in women accounts for about 0.2‰ of all women. Because the onset time of puberty development varies greatly among normal children, it is difficult to determine the absolute boundary between normal and precocious onset of puberty development.

It is generally believed that if a girl develops any one or more secondary sexual characteristics such as breast enlargement, pubic hair growth, and axillary hair growth before the age of 8, or if her first menstruation begins before the age of 10, she is experiencing precocious puberty. Some scholars also argue that if a child's puberty and sexual development are 2 or 2.5 standard deviations earlier than the local average age of normal children, she is experiencing precocious puberty.

Girls show signs of sexual maturity such as menstruation, breast development, and pubic hair growth before the age of 8 years or twice the standard deviation of the local mean age of menarche. It can be diagnosed as precocious puberty. Then determine whether it is true or false precocious puberty and find out the cause. First of all, we must rule out diseases that are more serious in harming the body, such as central nervous system diseases, ovarian and adrenal tumors, and vaginal bleeding caused by other non-endocrine abnormalities, such as inflammation, foreign bodies, trauma, or reproductive tract tumors.

When collecting the medical history, we should ask whether the patient has accidentally taken birth control pills, whether breastfeeding mothers have taken birth control pills, whether the patient has consumed nutritional foods containing sex hormones, whether there has been a history of head trauma 1 to 2 months ago, whether there has been a history of birth trauma, convulsions, epilepsy, infection, etc., and whether there is a family history of precocious puberty. Understand the age of onset, speed of disease progression and growth status, whether there are headaches or visual impairments during the course of the disease, etc.

During the physical examination, pay special attention to:

① Record height (the ratio of upper to lower body), chest circumference, arm circumference, weight, pay attention to fat distribution, body shape, and record the stages of sexual characteristics development and the development of external genitalia. Generally, breast development is equivalent to bone age of 11 years, and menstruation is equivalent to bone age of 13 years to evaluate gonadal development.

② The whole body examination should also pay attention to the unique signs of McCune-Albright syndrome, hypothyroidism, Silver syndrome, such as skin pigmentation, abnormal head shape, and pay attention to whether there are any signs of abnormal nervous system. When examining the skin, attention should be paid to changes in skin pigmentation, the presence of acne, hair growth, excessive sebum secretion, and the presence of virilization.

③Abdominal and pelvic examination, paying attention to the presence of abdominal pain, abdominal masses, etc.