More Pre-Teens are Experiencing Puberty

Young girls are entering puberty earlier and earlier. Some girls as young as four and five are showing signs of sexual development. Like any other five year old, Skyla Jones loves to laugh with her mom. But they weren't laughing last year, after Skyla began exhibiting some disturbing symptoms like blood in her urine and fatigue. "I didn't know what was going on, I just went ahead and thought she had a kidney infection. And we went on antibiotics and still it didn't clear up," said Melissa Jones, Skyla's mom. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Dr. Andrew Muir, a pediatric endocrinologist at Georgia Medical College, to figure out what was going on with Skyla. She was having her menstrual cycle and showing other clear signs of puberty. "That's what he told me," said Skyla's mom. "That it was that she was having a menstrual cycle, and that it was lactating. I was really freaked out." And while cases like Skyla's are isolated, doctors say that in general girls are menstruating earlier than in the past. According to the journal, Pediatrics, by the age of eight, close to 50 percent of all African-American girls and about 15 percent of Caucasians start developing breasts and showing other signs of sexual development. "The switch that normally gets turned on for pubertal development gets turned on too early," said Dr. Diane Stafford of the Children's Hospital in Boston. Doctors say the average age used to be ten. "It can have many causes. Some are related to genetics, environmental factors and sometimes we just don't know why it happens," said Dr. Muir. Some scientists think there may be a link between early puberty and estrogen contamination in beef and poultry. Skyla had a thyroid problem. She got treatment and her symptoms are gone. Dr. Muir says she likely won't have another encounter until she's much older.