Absent Father Might Mean Earlier Puberty for Higher-Income Girls

Girls growing up in higher-income homes without a biological father are likely to reach puberty earlier than others, new research finds. "In higher-income families, father absence predicted earlier puberty, but it did not in lower-income, father-absent," said study leader Julianna Deardorff. "Girls in upper-income households without a father were at least twice as likely to experience early onset of puberty, as demonstrated by breast development," she said. The researchers defined higher income as $50,000 or more a year.

Early maturation in girls is linked with emotional and substance use problems and earlier sexual activity. These girls also face a higher risk for breast cancer and other reproductive cancers later in life. Previous research has linked absent-father households and earlier puberty, but this study adds more information, said Deardorff, an assistant professor of public health at the University of California, Berkeley. "We were looking at very early signs," such as breast development and the growth of pubic hair, she said. Other researchers have focused on the start of menstruation without looking at factors such as income and ethnicity, according to background information in the study.

Girls are reaching puberty earlier in the United States, where the average age of menstruation is about 12 years, Deardorff said. Recent research has found some girls starting to develop breasts as early as age 7 or 8. For their study, published Sept. 17 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, Deardorff and her colleagues followed 444 girls, aged 6 to 8 at the start, and their mothers. They gathered extensive data on factors such as weight, height, stage of breast and pubic hair development, father's presence and income. Eighty percent of the girls said their fathers did not live with them.

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Many Girls Now Begin Puberty at Age 7, 8

The onset of puberty is continuing to drop among American girls, with many girls as young as 7 and 8 now showing the beginnings of breast development, new research shows. Rising rates of childhood obesity long linked to earlier sexual development may be to blame, experts say. In the study, more than 1,200 girls ages 6 to 8 from Cincinnati, East Harlem, N.Y. and San Francisco were examined on two occasions between 2004 and 2006 by two different female pediatricians or nurse practitioners who felt for the presence of breast tissue. "We wanted to be careful not to mistake fatty deposits for actual breast tissue," explained study author Dr. Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital.

Among 7-year-olds, about 10.4 percent of white girls, 23.4 percent of black girls and almost 15 percent of Hispanic girls had started developing breasts, the team report in the September issue of Pediatrics. Among 8-year-olds, 18.3 percent of white girls, about 43 percent of black girls and just under 31 percent of Hispanic girls showed evidence of breast development.The figures suggest a rise in early-onset puberty compared to similar studies conducted earlier. For 7-year-old white girls, especially, they show a doubling of the rate from as recently as a decade ago, Biro said. One study found that about 5 percent of white 7-year-old girls and 10.5 percent of 8-year-olds were showing breast development.

For black girls, the rate of breast development in that study was 15.4 percent for 7-year-olds and 36.6 percent for 8-year-olds. The earlier data did not include information on Hispanic girls. Experts called the findings alarming. In terms of women's health, early puberty, including younger ages at menarche, or first menstrual cycle, is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer throughout the life span, Biro said. In addition, developing early is associated with psychological and social pressures that young girls may be ill-equipped to handle, including sexual advances from older boys and men, said Dr. Marcia Herman-Giddens, adjunct professor of public health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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