How to determine precocious puberty

       Since we spend all day with our children, changes in secondary sexual characteristics do not happen suddenly in one or two days. When the secondary sexual characteristics themselves are not obvious, parents often lack the ability to discern them and do not feel the rapid changes in their children’s appearance. Sometimes, even when there is a very obvious change (e.g., a boy’s voice changes significantly), parents can turn a blind eye to it. Therefore, this makes it somewhat more difficult for children with precocious puberty to be diagnosed and treated properly without timely medical attention.  When children develop puberty, they invariably have a significantly faster growth rate and can “stand out” from their peers in height in a relatively short period of time. At this point, careless parents often only complain that children grow too fast, not long ago just bought clothes soon became smaller; worse, some parents with extremely poor medical knowledge, but also for their own children grow rapidly and gloat! The boy’s external genitalia, especially the size of the testicles, the girl’s breasts, and the stains and even blood stains left by the genital tract secretions on the underwear are completely ignored.  As mentioned earlier, a small percentage of children have precocious puberty due to pressure from tumors occurring in and around the hypothalamus area, and as a result, these children may exhibit persistent headaches and even a loss of vision and a smaller field of vision (afterglow range). If the child is so young that the fontanelle is not yet closed and the size of the cranial cavity leaves room for expansion, headache symptoms may not be very pronounced even if the tumor is large. This special situation also greatly increases the difficulty of getting timely diagnosis and treatment for the child.  Parents should take their children to the doctor promptly if they have the above mentioned conditions. If you find that your child’s growth is suddenly accelerated or the growth rate exceeds 6 centimeters per year, you should take your child to a pediatrician or endocrinologist to clarify the possibility of precocious puberty. In order to avoid missing the best time for treatment.