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Family health November 2009

Too much too young?

Puberty for girls and boys is happening earlier and earlier, yet medicine has no hard and fast reasons for the causes. Nicola Gill investigates the effect on today's children

For most little girls at primary school, deciding which party dress to wear or learning to ride a bike is their biggest worry. But for six-year-old Chloe Perry, coping with monthly mood swings and getting to grips with sanitary towels is her priority. Chloe started puberty when she was four years old, which might seem extraordinary. Yet for more mothers and their young daughters, so-called precocious puberty and the problems it can bring are becoming a way of life.

Only a few generations ago in Victorian times, the average age of puberty for girls was 15, and for boys, 16. By the 1960s, the average age of 12 years and 6 months for a white European girl's first period was set by a study of 200 girls in a British orphanage - similar studies found that 14 was the average age of sexual maturity for boys. But in the last 20 years the typical age of puberty has slid inexorably downwards. Now, according to researchers, one in six girls under ten has begun her periods, while many others are starting at eight, seven, or even younger. As normal puberty takes around four years, that means thousands of girls of four and five years old are showing signs of early puberty now. There is also evidence that puberty for boys is starting earlier.

"Practitioners are seeing far greater numbers of children with advanced sexual development," says Professor Ilpo Huhteniemi, chair of reproductive biology at Imperial College, London. "The questions are: what is causing it, what are the long-term implications and what do we do about it?"

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