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I had a foster daughter who was diagnosed with precocious puberty and have a 21 month old adopted daughter who was suspected of having it (but doesn't).
Precocious puberty can be caused by internal or external factors. The external factors can be ingestion of hormones through meat or other food, swallowing an adults hormone pills, having skin to skin contact with an adult who uses topical hormones, etc. Newer studies are showing that some babies who drink milk from plastic bottles heated in the microwave receive hormone-like chemicals in thier bottles.
Internal causes can be from something wrong with the pituitary gland in the brain or something wrong with the child's testicles or ovaries. When researching causes of Central Nervous System (CNS) precocious puberty I could not find any evidence that drug exposure in utero causes this damage. However, one of my pediatric endocrinologists did verbally say that "it makes sense for drugs to be a potential cause." If precocious puberty can be caused by damage to the brain from hydrocephalus, tumors, head injuries...why can't it be caused by damage to the brain from drugs?
Precocious puberty in and of itself does not harm the child, but you do have to deal with the early onset of odor, hair growth, physical development, etc. Also, true precocious puberty causes the bones to grow faster than in the average child. This increased growth usually causes the child to be very tall in childhood, but rather short as an adult. The bones grow quickly, but stop growing earlier than usual. This, of course, can lead to some emotional trauma for the child (especially a boy) if not treated.
I hope this helps some. I wish you the best of luck with your son's health. Please let us know how everything turns out.
Rhonda (amom of J-7,T-7,A-6,A-3,A-1...fmom of E-2,C-6m)
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