Early Puberty in Girls—What Do We Know in 2022?

I remember 1997. Early puberty was THE topic of discussion among pediatric and adolescent gynecologists, adolescent medicine physicians, and pediatric endocrinologists. That year, Marcia Herman-Giddens published the landmark study entitled “Secondary sexual characteristics and menses in young girls seen in office practice: a study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings network.” The study included the findings that at age 8, 48.3% of African American girls and 14.7% of white girls had at least 1 sign of pubertal development, earlier than was suggested in standard pediatric textbooks.