This New York Times article shot up to #1 in their Most E-mailed list when it came out last week.

The article explains how in the late 80’s, people started to notice that girls were growing pubic hair and starting breast development at a younger age:

In the late 1980s, Marcia Herman-Giddens, then a physician’s associate in the pediatric department of the Duke University Medical Center, started noticing that an awful lot of 8- and 9-year-olds in her clinic had sprouted pubic hair and breasts. The medical wisdom, at that time, based on a landmark 1960 study of institutionalized British children, was that puberty began, on average, for girls at age 11. But that was not what Herman-Giddens was seeing. So she started collecting data, eventually leading a study with the American Academy of Pediatrics that sampled 17,000 girls, finding that among white girls, the average age of breast budding was 9.96. Among black girls, it was 8.87.

The study was criticized, but the basic findings were more or less confirmed in August, 2010: 

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Well-respected researchers at three big institutions — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York — published another study in Pediatrics, finding that by age 7, 10 percent of white girls, 23 percent of black girls, 15 percent of Hispanic girls and 2 percent of Asian girls had started developing breasts.

Before you react to those stats though, it’s worth noticing that puberty in girls is marked by three main events: breast development, pubic hair growth and the onset of menstruation. The first two appear to be taking place earlier, but the last one is more or less happening around the same time: “[S]ince the 1970s, the average age of first period, or menarche, has remained fairly constant, dropping to only 12.5 from 12.8 years.”

The article explains several possible contributing factors for the early onset of puberty, ranging from being overweight, to being exposed to environmental chemicals like BPA and other “estrogen mimics.” Another risk factor: family stress.  But it also puts forth an alternate theory: that early breast growth may not signal the actual start of puberty but be a physical symptom that results from exposure to “nonovarian estrogens.” Following that thought to its logical conclusion is a bit comforting, as the Times explains: “[A] girl who is not yet in puberty may not have developed an adolescent brain. This means she would not yet feel the acute tug of her own sexual urges. She would not seek thrills and risk.”

What can parents do about all this, other than work to control the possible contributing risk factors?

Parents can keep their daughters active and at healthy body weights. They can treat them the age they are, not the age they look. They can defend against a culture that sells push-up bikinis for 7-year-olds and otherwise sexualizes young girls. “Most of the psychological issues associated with early puberty are related to risk-taking behaviors,” Greenspan continued, and parents can mitigate those. “I know it sounds corny and old-fashioned, but if you’re in a supportive family environment, where you are eating family meals and reading books together, you actually do have control.”

Somewhat comforting! But as the mother of a six-month-old girl, it’s also a bit terrifying.

How old were you when you experienced the three milestones of female puberty: breast development, pubic hair and your first period? Do you worry about the early onset of puberty in your kids?

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