Tooth replacement too early and bone age too advanced

When a child's body is developing rapidly, parents must be very concerned about their child's physical development. Premature tooth replacement and advanced bone age are the two most common situations. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, which does not necessarily mean that the child is precocious. It is closely related to factors such as the child's physique, nutrition, and environment. In order to monitor the changes of children more accurately, we must have a comprehensive understanding of these phenomena.

The reason for early tooth replacement: mainly related to individual differences

What is the reason for early tooth replacement? Many children nowadays have their teeth replaced before the age of 6. This is a normal phenomenon. It is related to the child's nutrition, individual differences, and genetic factors. It is normal for girls to have earlier teeth than boys. As long as the child's teeth are not replaced too early, there is no need to worry.

Is the early or late development of teeth related to early maturity?

Children's tooth replacement usually starts at the age of 6 and ends at the age of 12. However, more and more children have their teeth replaced before the age of 6, and some children have lost all their teeth by the age of 10. This is related to the child's nutrition, individual differences, and genetic factors. Early tooth replacement is not a sign of precocity. Some parents mistakenly believe that it is due to excessive calcium supplementation. In fact, calcium supplementation before the age of 5 will affect the growth of new teeth, but it will no longer work after the age of 5.

Causes of precocious puberty in children

1. The trend of accelerated growth and development. Due to factors such as improved living standards, better nutrition, and reduced diseases, this generation of children has experienced earlier sexual development and maturity.

2. The impact of environmental pollution. Foreign literature reports that substances discharged into the environment by the washing, pesticide, and plastic industries and their decomposition products can produce environmental hormone pollutants. These pollutants have been found to have estrogenic activity and are absorbed through water, food, and skin, becoming the cause of pseudo-precocious puberty and true precocious puberty.

3. Intake of foods or medicines containing sex hormones. Nowadays, many parents give their children ginseng, royal jelly, pollen, chicken embryos, silkworm pupae and other items containing large amounts of sex hormones.

4. The influence of social and psychological factors. For example, the content related to sex in television, movies, newspapers, magazines, etc. has increased significantly compared to before. Some children can be exposed to behavioral scenes beyond their psychological age from movies and TV at an early age.

5. Influence of disease. Factors such as intracranial tumors, adrenal diseases, thyroid diseases, genetics, ovarian diseases, liver diseases, etc. may cause children to experience precocious puberty.

There are many reasons why bones may be older or younger than normal. Bone age is an important indicator for diagnosing endocrine diseases, among which the levels of growth hormone, thyroid hormone, and sex hormones all play an important role in the development of bone age. Children with growth hormone deficiency have delayed growth and development due to insufficient growth hormone secretion, and children with hypothyroidism have insufficient thyroid hormone secretion, which affects their growth and development. The appearance time of their ossification centers will be significantly delayed, so their bone age will be significantly delayed. On the contrary, children with precocious puberty and congenital adrenal hyperplasia have significantly accelerated bone development and premature epiphyseal healing due to increased sex hormone levels, so their bone age greatly exceeds their actual age.