Age of pubertal events among school girls in Lagos, Nigeria
-
Folakemi O. Irewole-Ojo
,
Abiola O. Oduwole
Abstract
Background:
Globally, there is a secular trend towards the reduced age for sexual maturity and menarche. This study aimed to determine the current age and factors associated with attainment of various stages of puberty in Nigerian girls.
Methods:
This study was a cross-sectional study involving 800 girls aged 6–15 years. The subjects were selected by stratified random sampling method from schools in Oshodi Local Government Area, Lagos State. They were interviewed and a physical examination was carried out to classify them into the various Tanner stages of breast and pubic hair maturational stages.
Results:
The median age of girls at first stage of breast maturation (B2), first stage of pubic hair development (PH2) and at menarche were 9.0, 9.0 and 12.0 years, respectively. Breast development was significantly related to normal nutritional status (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 4.5, p<0.001), overweight (AOR 40.2, p<0.001), obesity (AOR 154.2, p<0.001) and upper social class (AOR 15.7, p<0.031). Pubic hair development was significantly related only to overweight (AOR 4.7, p<0.007) and obesity (AOR 15.7, p<0.001) while achievement of menarche was significantly related to overweight (AOR 0.1, p=0.005), obesity (AOR 0.1, p=0.0009), high social class (AOR 4.7, p<0.001) and being a member of the Hausa tribe (AOR 35.8, p<0.029).
Conclusions:
There is decline in age of pubertal maturation of girls in Nigeria and the major contributory factors appear to be overweight and obesity. These findings are consistent with the pattern in developed countries.
Acknowledgments
We thank the numerous school pupils of Oshodi LCDA who participated in this study. We are also grateful to their parents and guardians, the Local Government School Management Board and the individual school authorities for their approval to carry out this study. We appreciate the co-operation of all class teachers, school counselors and school nurses who were chaperons during the physical examinations of pupils.
Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Research funding: None declared.
Employment or leadership: None declared.
Honorarium: None declared.
Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.
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©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Review
- Vitamin D deficiency in childhood: old lessons and current challenges
- Original Articles
- Brain gray matter volume differences in obese youth with type 2 diabetes: a pilot study
- Prevalence and clinical presentation at the onset of type 1 diabetes mellitus among children and adolescents in AL-Baha region, Saudi Arabia
- Whole blood viscosity and cerebral blood flow velocities in obese hypertensive or obese normotensive adolescents
- The utility of body mass index as an indicator for lipid abnormalities in non-fasting children
- Association of insulin-like growth factor-1 and IGF binding protein-3 with 25-hydroxy vitamin D in pre-pubertal and adolescent Indian girls
- The safety of Lipistart, a medium-chain triglyceride based formula, in the dietary treatment of long-chain fatty acid disorders: a phase I study
- Clinical follow-up data and the rate of development of precocious and rapidly progressive puberty in patients with premature thelarche
- Age of pubertal events among school girls in Lagos, Nigeria
- Evaluation of basal sex hormone levels for activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis
- PHKG2 mutation spectrum in glycogen storage disease type IXc: a case report and review of the literature
- Twenty-seven mutations with three novel pathologenic variants causing biotinidase deficiency: a report of 203 patients from the southeastern part of Turkey
- Case Reports
- Emergence of insulin resistance following empirical glibenclamide therapy: a case report of neonatal diabetes with a recessive INS gene mutation
- A rare unbalanced Y:autosome translocation in a Turner syndrome patient
- A Japanese patient with congenital central hypothyroidism caused by a novel IGSF1 mutation
- Growth, sexual and bone development in a boy with bilateral anorchia under testosterone treatment guided by the development of his monozygotic twin
