Puberty can start as young as eight — here's what you need to know 

Parents tend to focus on the teenage years as a time of transition, but it's easy to overlook the profound changes children undergo in middle childhood as they begin puberty, now occurring earlier than in the past
Puberty can start as young as eight — here's what you need to know 

“For girls, the average age at which puberty now starts is between eight and 12. For boys, it’s between nine and 13. We’ve more children at the earlier end,” says Gonzalez Ziegler, a Colorado-based clinical psychologist.

On the day Dr Sheryl Gonzalez Zeigler’s daughter lost her last baby tooth she also got her first period.

The age at which puberty starts has been trending earlier since the 1970s. The age of puberty dropped by almost three months per decade from 1977 to 2013, according to a 2020 review of multiple studies.

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