A mother is considering freezing her young daughter\u2019s eggs after she started going through puberty at just 10 months old.<\/p>\n
Sophie Dumas was completely unaware that anything was unusual about her daughter, Sienna, until a health visitor noticed that the baby\u2019s breast tissue appeared enlarged.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old took her daughter to the doctor and the pair were referred to pediatric endocrinologists who began investigating whether she had precocious puberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sophie Dumas, left, and her daughter Sienna. Jam Press<\/p>\n After a series of distressing tests, Sienna was diagnosed with central precocious puberty (CPP) \u2014 a condition in which the brain begins sending the signals that trigger puberty much earlier than usual.<\/p>\n She was just 10 months old at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cSienna was a happy and healthy baby,\u201d Sophie, from London, told creatorzine.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe breast buds weren\u2019t something I\u2019d 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\u2019t think anything of her appearance as being out of the ordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n The tests she underwent, Sophie said, were horrible for the whole family.<\/p>\n \u201cShe had what was referred to as stim tests, which was a term I went on to dread, which involved blood tests to take a baseline to measure the LH level \u2014 the hormone that regulates puberty \u2014 then injecting her with a synthetic hormone to see how her blood hormones react over a period of different timeframes.\u201d<\/p>\n The tests meant spending a whole day in hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cSienna became so stressed that she sweated the cannulas out, and one of her veins collapsed,\u201d Sophie said. \u201cThey then had to draw her blood via another method from her heels with a pin-prick.\u201d<\/p>\n Sienna was diagnosed with rare central precocious puberty at just 10 months old. Jam Press<\/p>\n Sophie said the experience was \u201cincredibly distressing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey had to carry out X-rays to determine Sienna\u2019s bone age, which was awful as they needed her to keep her hand flat and still whilst the X-rays were taken,\u201d she explained. \u201cThat\u2019s not easy for a 10-month-old to do.\u201d<\/p>\n The only way Sophie could soothe her daughter through the procedures and tests was to breastfeed<\/a> her, with a heavy blanket covering them.<\/p>\n A few weeks later, the family received the news that Sienna\u2019s tests were positive for precocious puberty.<\/p>\n In children with central precocious puberty, the brain starts sending the signals that trigger puberty much earlier than usual. Jam Press<\/p>\n Sophie said she had never heard of the condition and was left desperately researching what it meant for Sienna.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt feels very isolating, and I still have so many questions about it, mostly about how I can explain this to Sienna.\u201d<\/p>\n Doctors said that she would need regular injections of a hormone blocker known as a GnRH analogue to suppress the hormones responsible for puberty.<\/p>\n Sienna is a happy, healthy 5-year-old, but she goes in for injections every month to manage her condition Jam Press<\/p>\n Sienna also underwent an MRI<\/a> to determine whether there was an underlying cause for her condition, as in some cases, CPP can be linked to abnormalities in the brain.<\/p>\n Sophie said the possibility was \u201cterrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n Thankfully, Sienna\u2019s MRI was clear, and she was diagnosed with CPP, which has no known cause in many children and is more common in girls.<\/p>\n Without treatment, Sienna, now five, would have progressed through puberty years before her peers.<\/p>\n While the condition is not life-threatening, her doctors said that early puberty can affect final adult height because children initially grow rapidly, but their growth plates can mature sooner.<\/p>\n \u201cThe emotional impact this may have on Sienna could be devastating,\u201d Sophie said. \u201cHaving any sorts of differences today can lead to all sorts of bullying, isolation and mental health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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\u2019s body trying to rob her of her youth felt unfair,\u201d she continued. \u201cCPP is certainly not life-threatening, but it is somewhat life-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophie is considering freezing her young daughter\u2019s eggs in an effort to preserve her chances of having children in the future. Jam Press<\/p>\n Even so, Sophie is reluctant to complain, saying she\u2019s \u201cincredibly lucky\u201d to have a healthy, happy daughter.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, when it\u2019s your daughter who you have to hold down so the doctors can take bloods or give her injections, and she\u2019s crying, \u2018Mummy, please help me, please don\u2019t let them hurt me,\u2019 it is heartbreaking,\u201d she admitted. \u201cI also can\u2019t tell her that she needs to have these injections to stop her getting sick, as this is untrue.\u201d<\/p>\n The young girl now goes in for an injection every four weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes she\u2019s absolutely fine about them, but there are still lots of occasions where she kicks, screams, hides and as her parent, it\u2019s a labor of love, knowing it\u2019s best for her, but it does kill you inside,\u201d Sophie said. <\/p>\n The family has been told that Sienna is likely to remain on the hormone-blocking treatment until she is around 11 or 12, although this will depend on her bone age and how she develops.<\/p>\n Sophie is now looking ahead to her daughter\u2019s future and is considering whether egg freezing could give Sienna more options when she is older.<\/p>\n Sienna has faced bullying at school over complications from her condition, including red dots on her face linked to hormone problems. Jam Press<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m currently looking into that possibility in case her condition affects her fertility later down the line,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The effects of the condition are already beginning to surface.<\/p>\n \u201cSienna\u2019s getting to an age where some of the untreatable symptoms are causing her to deal with spots on her face in the areas that are linked to hormones,\u201d Sophie said. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult explaining it to her.\u201d<\/p>\n At school, other children have teased her<\/a>, thinking she has chickenpox<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one wants to think of their child being upset, especially when it\u2019s from what someone else has said to them,\u201d Sophie said. \u201cSienna was confused because she didn\u2019t know how to explain to them that they\u2019re different kinds of spots because she doesn\u2019t even understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n The process to diagnose Sienna was \u201cincredibly distressing\u201d for the whole family. Jam Press<\/p>\n The mother told her daughter\u2019s teacher, who said she would reassure Sienna and tell the other children that it\u2019s \u201cnot their job to play doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, Sophie says she is determined to let her daughter enjoy being a little girl.<\/p>\n \u201cMy 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\u2019t be ready for all that comes with it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cPuberty is such an abstract concept for a child, so talking to her about it is complicated for her to understand and also for me to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n After all, Sienna is still a little girl, obsessed with fairies and Disney princes. Sophie said she wants to take her daughter to Disneyland next year to keep the magic of childhood alive.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only advice I would give to another parent who is concerned about anything, even if they think it makes them look or sound neurotic, is to seek that medical advice and even get second opinions,\u201d Sophie said. <\/p>\n \u201cOur health visitor didn\u2019t even think it would get taken seriously and, without her noticing something I never did, Sienna would not have received treatment as early as she did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother is considering freezing her young daughter\u2019s eggs after she started going through puberty at just 10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6729,6262,6834,151,97,5446,148,78108],"class_list":["post-860489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-babies","tag-bones","tag-bullying","tag-children","tag-health","tag-hormones","tag-parenting","tag-puberty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}