Precocious puberty

When we were children at school, there was that one child who was suddenly taller than everyone else. They would tower above classmates and their bodies foreshadowed the changes that would come for us all, sooner or later. There was an awkwardness and a flurry of emotions that ran with puberty, but what if it happened MUCH too early? YEARS too early? Puberty is considered precocious when it occurs before eight years of age in females and nine in males. Pubic hair development, skeletal maturation, and sex-specific changes cause alarm in both children and their parents if they appeared at the wrong time. Around one in 5 thousand children, mostly females, are diagnosed with precocious puberty each year. If the pituitary gland in the brain is the cause, whether from a tumor, head trauma, a malformation, or otherwise, then the syndrome is called central precocious puberty. Learn more about the mechanisms at play in the above video.