developmental changes don’t always occur
at the same time for all boys and girls
but how do we account for early and late
bloomers hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with dr. Preetha Krishnamoorthy
a pediatric endocrinologist at the
Montreal Children’s Hospital about
hormones and how these might affect the
speed of a child’s development what’s
really going on during puberty for boys
and girls I think there’s a lot that’s
going on during puberty and I guess they
the easiest way to think about it
conceptualize it is that there’s the
physical changes that are occurring and
there are the psychological changes that
are occurring so physically what’s
happening during puberty is that
hormones are activated the pituitary
gland in our head is turned on and gets
the process rolling and the hormones
their job is to help a child reach their
adult sexual function and fertility and
all the physical changes that go on are
help in that process so that’s the
physical side of it the psychological
side of it I think is a little more
complicated and there’s lots of things
that are going on but I think
essentially that’s the stage at which a
child of discovering who they are and
and learning more about themselves by
what age should boys and girls be
starting puberty if a girl doesn’t start
showing signs of puberty by age 13 then
that’s that’s usually something that
warrants medical attention and if a boy
hasn’t shown signs of puberty by age 14
again that’s that’s that’s a little bit
late on that same token if a girl starts
puberty before age 7 then we should be
seeing a doctor for that or if a boy
start signs at puberty before age 9 are
there any health concerns associated
with early or delayed development I
always like to think of it as if puberty
starting early it may be a variant of
normal and there are variants of normal
that we look at but otherwise what we
have to determine is the problem could
be coming from one of two places I
always say it’s either coming from up
here so the pituitary gland in the head
which kind of sets the ball rolling and
gets things in motion so it could be a
problem up there where it’s turned on
too quickly or it could be a problem
from down here so it could be either the
ovaries and girls or the
testicles and boys that have for some
reason turned on early and there’s a
whole slew of causes from both places
that can actually make puberty start
early so we have to make sure there’s no
underlying cause now if we find no cause
and we that’s when we call it idiopathic
or no cause we often depending on the
age of the child they’ll treat early
puberty and the reason we do that is
because if you have a five or six year
old girl who’s going through major
changes and a growth spurt and
everything but we run the risk that
their final adult height would actually
be shorter so even though there may be
six years old and look taller because
they’re having a growth spurt the height
at which they’re starting off is lower
so they’ll have their growth spurt
earlier and they’ll finish growing
sooner so we may decide to treat them to
preserve their final adult type to make
sure they reach their genetic potential
in terms of height and another reason we
treat them is also psychological no it’s
it would be imagine you know having a
young girl in grade 2 or 3 who already
has to deal with having her period
but we don’t treat everybody we really
look at each patient and what’s in the
best interest of that patient in that
same way their risk having Lakeview
Bertie and once we’ve ruled out any
other underlying cause we want to make
sure they have enough hormones number
one for the body changes that’ll make
them feel like everybody else around
them but also secondly because those
hormones the sex steroids estrogen and
girls and testosterone and boys they’re
really really important for establishing
bone mineral density so puberty is way
too late then we run the risk of getting
osteoporosis later on how is early or
delayed puberty treated if they have
early puberty like I said we’ll see what
the cause is where’s it coming from is
it coming from the pituitary gland is it
coming from the ovaries the adrenals or
the testicles and boys and if there’s a
certain treatment depending on the cause
we’ll we’ll treat it otherwise if we
don’t know the cause and we think for
some unknown reason the pituitary gland
has turned on too early there is a
treatment and it’s called loop on and
it’s injections that are given once a
month to slow down the process for late
puberty if we have someone who’s a late
bloomer and we really sometimes we have
kids who are
it’s just a variant of normal they don’t
actually need treatment but some young
men particularly will want to speed up
the process and we can offer them
testosterone injections but it’s
temporary because we we don’t want to
give them testosterone long term we just
want to jumpstart the process and help
things going and let mother nature take
its course ideally but in late puberty
if things are just a little bit late we
often don’t treat as long as they are
psychologically feeling okay with it and
we follow them closely make sure we’ve
ruled out any underlying causes like I
said but sometimes to jumpstart the
process we do have options of treatment
thank you very much thank you
at the same time for all boys and girls
but how do we account for early and late
bloomers hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with dr. Preetha Krishnamoorthy
a pediatric endocrinologist at the
Montreal Children’s Hospital about
hormones and how these might affect the
speed of a child’s development what’s
really going on during puberty for boys
and girls I think there’s a lot that’s
going on during puberty and I guess they
the easiest way to think about it
conceptualize it is that there’s the
physical changes that are occurring and
there are the psychological changes that
are occurring so physically what’s
happening during puberty is that
hormones are activated the pituitary
gland in our head is turned on and gets
the process rolling and the hormones
their job is to help a child reach their
adult sexual function and fertility and
all the physical changes that go on are
help in that process so that’s the
physical side of it the psychological
side of it I think is a little more
complicated and there’s lots of things
that are going on but I think
essentially that’s the stage at which a
child of discovering who they are and
and learning more about themselves by
what age should boys and girls be
starting puberty if a girl doesn’t start
showing signs of puberty by age 13 then
that’s that’s usually something that
warrants medical attention and if a boy
hasn’t shown signs of puberty by age 14
again that’s that’s that’s a little bit
late on that same token if a girl starts
puberty before age 7 then we should be
seeing a doctor for that or if a boy
start signs at puberty before age 9 are
there any health concerns associated
with early or delayed development I
always like to think of it as if puberty
starting early it may be a variant of
normal and there are variants of normal
that we look at but otherwise what we
have to determine is the problem could
be coming from one of two places I
always say it’s either coming from up
here so the pituitary gland in the head
which kind of sets the ball rolling and
gets things in motion so it could be a
problem up there where it’s turned on
too quickly or it could be a problem
from down here so it could be either the
ovaries and girls or the
testicles and boys that have for some
reason turned on early and there’s a
whole slew of causes from both places
that can actually make puberty start
early so we have to make sure there’s no
underlying cause now if we find no cause
and we that’s when we call it idiopathic
or no cause we often depending on the
age of the child they’ll treat early
puberty and the reason we do that is
because if you have a five or six year
old girl who’s going through major
changes and a growth spurt and
everything but we run the risk that
their final adult height would actually
be shorter so even though there may be
six years old and look taller because
they’re having a growth spurt the height
at which they’re starting off is lower
so they’ll have their growth spurt
earlier and they’ll finish growing
sooner so we may decide to treat them to
preserve their final adult type to make
sure they reach their genetic potential
in terms of height and another reason we
treat them is also psychological no it’s
it would be imagine you know having a
young girl in grade 2 or 3 who already
has to deal with having her period
but we don’t treat everybody we really
look at each patient and what’s in the
best interest of that patient in that
same way their risk having Lakeview
Bertie and once we’ve ruled out any
other underlying cause we want to make
sure they have enough hormones number
one for the body changes that’ll make
them feel like everybody else around
them but also secondly because those
hormones the sex steroids estrogen and
girls and testosterone and boys they’re
really really important for establishing
bone mineral density so puberty is way
too late then we run the risk of getting
osteoporosis later on how is early or
delayed puberty treated if they have
early puberty like I said we’ll see what
the cause is where’s it coming from is
it coming from the pituitary gland is it
coming from the ovaries the adrenals or
the testicles and boys and if there’s a
certain treatment depending on the cause
we’ll we’ll treat it otherwise if we
don’t know the cause and we think for
some unknown reason the pituitary gland
has turned on too early there is a
treatment and it’s called loop on and
it’s injections that are given once a
month to slow down the process for late
puberty if we have someone who’s a late
bloomer and we really sometimes we have
kids who are
it’s just a variant of normal they don’t
actually need treatment but some young
men particularly will want to speed up
the process and we can offer them
testosterone injections but it’s
temporary because we we don’t want to
give them testosterone long term we just
want to jumpstart the process and help
things going and let mother nature take
its course ideally but in late puberty
if things are just a little bit late we
often don’t treat as long as they are
psychologically feeling okay with it and
we follow them closely make sure we’ve
ruled out any underlying causes like I
said but sometimes to jumpstart the
process we do have options of treatment
thank you very much thank you
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