Beyond the psychological impact of the health crisis, the Covid-19 could have an unprecedented impact on the arrival – increasingly early – of the puberty in young girls. In girls, puberty varies between 9 and 16 years and is characterized first by the appearance of breasts, then the first hairs and finally menstruation. In France, they appear on average around the age of 12 and a half.
Before eight years in girls, we can speak of precocious puberty. They are also ten times more affected than boys. A figure that would seem to increase further since the arrival of the pandemic. According to researchers from theuniversity of bonn in Germany, the number of cases of precocious puberty in young girls has doubled since the start of the pandemic. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of young girls diagnosed remained stable (less than 10 cases per year), before doubling in 2020 (23 cases per year). The latest results presented at the 2022 meeting of the European Society of Endocrinology show that cases have increased further in 2021, rising to 30 cases per year.
But German researchers are not the only ones to have made this observation, and more and more children are being given treatment to reduce hormone levels and delay their sexual development. “In the pre-covid year we had 28 children who started treatment, and in the covid year we had 64 children who started treatment“, said to New Scientist Prof. Karen Klein, Rady Children’s Hospital and University of California San Diego.
“Previously I [traitais] one or two patients per month due to precocious puberty, but during this period I had to treat two or three patients per week”also says Dr. Sezer Acar of the Dr. Behçet Uz Children’s Education and Research Hospital.
What are the causes cited?
“We know stress can cause earlier puberty, so it’s definitely high on the list.”, suggests Professor Karen Klein. “[…] everyone is at home without exercising, which can be weight gain, and we know that rapid weight gain can cause earlier puberty”, she continues. However, the researchers did not find that children with precocious puberty were heavier.
An increase in screen time and changes in sleep cycles were also mentioned as likely factors for this change.
More broadly, some even wondered if Covid-19 itself could not have had an impact on these cases of precocious puberty. “I don’t think the effect of covid on female puberty is limited to girls who actually had the infectionsays Paul Kaplowitz of Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC. Especially since, in the early stages of the pandemic, children were much less likely to be infected than adults.”.
What are the risks of precocious puberty?
Early puberty is not without risk. On a physical level, it will be linked to a short height in adulthood because the child will also stop growing earlier. It can also be responsible for serious health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.
But precocious puberty can also be responsible for mental health issuese, especially depression in girls. Early menstruation in girls (and early display of virility in boys) can be a risk. ” In my opinion, this risk is not sufficiently taken into account in the recommendations, it can be very penalizing to be feminized or virilized very early. In primary school, it is still complicated to get your period! “, confided to Top Santé the pediatrician endocrinologist Claire Jeandel in an article on the subject.
Sources:
- Covid-19 and increased prevalence of female precocious puberty in Germany, University of Bonn
- Covid-19 pandemic linked to early onset of puberty in some girls, New ScientistSeptember 17, 2022