Here’s something you thought you’d never have to deal with: your 3-year-old going through puberty. Yet it’s a little more common than you think (though, mercifully, still pretty rare).

And it looks like something that doctors might overlook at the well-baby check ups. Somehow, the mothers in this story figured out that their daughters -- their preschoolers! -- we're thiiiiiis close to getting their periods, and then spent a good bit of time and energy convincing their pediatricians.

The average age of puberty for both boys and girls has lowered by two years over the past century.

From the Daily Mail: "In fact, a recent study showed that British girls today start their periods at an average age of ten years and three months, compared to 11 years nine months for their mothers and 12 years for their grandmothers."

But for an untold number, it's happening much earlier than that -- like around 8 years old. And still earlier for a tiny number of those -- at 3. Wow!

Called precocious puberty, endocrinologists don't know why some girls reach this very special time in their young lives at a very alarmingly time in their really young lives. But it can have lasting damages, not just physically -- bones aging rapidly, for example, but also emotionally. Kind of tough coaching a 3-year-old through the changes when she isn't all that facile with language, huh?

Even with the older ones -- like the 8-year-olds, it can be confusing and isolating, some women who developed early as girls say in the article. Plus, they're often much taller, have to use deodorant, get acne (or for boys, grow facial hair) or suffer from cramps when nobody else does. 

The good news is that once early onset puberty is diagnosed, it can be controlled with medication, allowing time to catch up with the body and slowing the effects of the early onset puberty.

Momsquak talks about it briefly and trots out the hormones-in-meat theory, but comes to no conclusions. Still, makes you think. Makes you cross your fingers and think.

Photo: Daily Mail