A young girl who began puberty as a baby may have her eggs frozen, the girl's mother said.
A young girl who began puberty as a baby may have her eggs frozen, the girl's mother said.
According to The New York Post, Sophie Dumas, of London, England, said she is considering whether to freeze her 5-year-old daughter’s eggs after the child began puberty at 10 months old.
When speaking to the publication, Dumas, 41, said she took her daughter, Sienna, to see a doctor after a health visitor noticed that enlarged breast tissue had appeared.
Dumas said she hadn’t noticed anything unusual herself, but the doctor referred them to a pediatric endocrinologist, who determined Sienna had precocious puberty.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, precocious puberty “means early puberty.”
“It’s the term for puberty that begins much earlier than usual — before age 8 in girls and before age 9 in boys,” the clinic wrote, adding that there are two kinds of precocious puberty:
- Central precocious puberty: "The more common type. It occurs when your child’s brain releases gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) too early. This causes their testes or ovaries to release sex hormones (androgens) too early."
- Peripheral precocious puberty: "Occurs as a result of problems with your child’s reproductive organs (ovaries or testicles) or adrenal glands. Sometimes it results from hormone exposure from their environment."
The clinic notes that precocious puberty occurs more often in females than in males.
Dumas reportedly stated that Sienna was diagnosed with central precocious puberty after a series of “distressing tests,” per the publication.
She told creatorzine.com that the child was “a happy and healthy baby,” adding that “the breast buds weren’t something I’d noticed before, and as babies are usually the sort of chubby that makes them that little bit more adorable, and also that she was breastfed, I didn’t think anything of her appearance as being out of the ordinary.”
Dumas reportedly said that testing was a difficult process and that she came to “dread” the words “stim tests.”
She explained that the tests “involved blood tests to take a baseline to measure the LH level, the hormone that regulates puberty, then injecting her with a synthetic hormone to see how her blood hormones react over a period of different timeframes,” per The Post.
According to the publication, the tests required the child to stay in the hospital for an entire day.
Dumas reportedly said that Sienna “became so stressed that she sweated the cannulas out, and one of her veins collapsed,” adding that the doctors had to draw blood from her heels with a “pin-prick.”
When speaking to the publication, Dumas said the only way to ease her daughter was to breastfeed her while they were covered with a heavy blanket. She said X-rays to determine the child's bone age were particularly difficult because Sienna had to keep her hand flat while the X-rays were being taken.
Weeks later, doctors were able to diagnose Sienna with precocious puberty, per the report.
Dumas said she had never heard of the condition beforehand and went online to learn how it might shape the family and her daughter’s lives.
“I found that the lack of knowledge about it very hard, and the only parents I could find to talk to were via Facebook groups for it, but even then, they were parents of seven- to eight-year-olds, so it was never relevant,” she said, per the report. “It feels very isolating, and I still have so many questions about it, mostly about how I can explain this to Sienna.”
Dumas said she was informed that Sienna would require regular injections of the hormone blocker “GnRH analogue” to suppress the hormones that start puberty.
According to The Post, Sienna’s doctors said that although the condition is not life-threatening, it can affect one’s final height as an adult. Children may grow rapidly initially, but their growth plates can mature sooner.
Sienna, now 5 years old, is reportedly seeing a doctor for an injection every four weeks and will likely remain on treatment until she is about 11 or 12, per the report. Dumas told the publication she is now considering freezing Sienna’s eggs to give her daughter more options when she is older.
“I’m currently looking into that possibility in case her condition affects her fertility later down the line. When she was diagnosed, I was worried that she may not be able to start a family of her own one day if she wanted to, that the choice may be taken away from her. Hopefully, the hormone blockers will prevent this from affecting her fertility,” Dumas said, per the publication.
Dumas added that Sienna is reaching an age when some of the condition’s untreatable effects are beginning to emerge, such as “spots on her face in areas that are linked to hormones.” She added that some children have teased her because they believe she has chickenpox.
“Having any sorts of differences today can lead to all sorts of bullying, isolation and mental health issues,” Dumas said, according to the report. “We all want our children to remain children for as long as we can, to maintain those magical dreams and nurture vivid imaginations with fairies and princesses, so Sienna’s body trying to rob her of her youth felt unfair. CPP is certainly not life-threatening, but it is somewhat life-changing.”
She added, “my main concerns are that all little girls want to grow up before they should, and the pressures around things like breast size, so I am worried that once Sienna understands what would happen if she were to refuse her treatment early so that she goes through puberty, her mental maturity wouldn’t be ready for all that comes with it,” per The Post.
