It just came to my attention that some pediatricians may be offering up hormones to prevent a child from starting her mense too early if she is considered to be too young to handle it emotionally!

I was shocked to hear this, and I plan on doing research regarding this issue. And, this subject brings up many other issues regarding hormones and our practice of trying to control them.

As women, our bodies were designed to go through the cycles of life that are pre-peri and post fertile. These are normal. And, in my experience, endeavoring to intervene with what is normal is not typically a good idea.

Women are made to feel that menopause is abnormal and that we have to use hormones to
circumvent the symptoms. What I have found is that actually those symptoms may be greatly influenced by working on a woman's whole body balance, as opposed to her hormonal balance specifically.
 
I did a post last week on bomamed.com regarding the issue of menstruation. Most women have horrific cycles and think that is normal. When these same women go through holistic treatment for the rest of their body, the cycle becomes effortless--a complete change.

This can be true for menopause as well. It is simply that the physiology in a woman's
body needs to be regulated in order for those hormonal fluctuations to occur
without creating so many unwanted symptoms. It is fascinating to note the changes that can occur in both menstrual cycles as well as menopause when only focusing on a woman's imbalances from an holistic viewpoint--not focusing on the hormonal imbalance itself.

To wrap up where I started. When this patient asked me what I thought about a doctor giving a child medicine to prevent her period from coming early, I almost gasped. If development of a child is occurring too young, I would be looking at things the child is eating. The most obvious one is perhaps soy. Too much estrogen in the food could be creating too many hormones in a child at too young an age. There are many other examples as well, but this is the big one. I would not think that giving medication, especially hormonal to influence a child's onset of menstruation is a good idea at all.

These young girls will be prime for IC, just as so many young girls taking birth control pills are. As I said, this is off the cuff, I have not researched what "they" are doing in regards to this, but this is my immediate response.