Abstract
Study Objective
Menarche is a critical milestone in a woman's life, and historically has been determined
using several approaches. The goals of this study were to: (1) determine age at menarche
from multiple reports of parents and adolescent participants in a prospective study;
(2) examine factors affecting age at menarche; and (3) determine correlates of menarche
and pubertal tempo.
Design
Longitudinal observational study.
Setting
Three sites of the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program.
Participants
Girls enrolled at 6-8 years of age.
Interventions and Main Outcome Measures
Parental and participant reported age of menarche, and tempo of puberty.
Results
There were 946 girls who were assigned an age of menarche. The correlation between
parent and participant reports was high (Spearman R = 0.799, P < .001), and the difference was insignificant. Median age at menarche overall was
12.25 years. Compared with black participants, Hispanic girls were more likely to
have menarche earlier, whereas white and Asian girls were more likely to have menarche
later. Age of menarche was highly correlated with age of breast development (Spearman
R = 0.547; P < .001), and inversely with body mass index (Spearman R = −0.403; P < .001). Tempo (interval of age of breast development to menarche) was slower in
those with earlier breast development.
Conclusion
Parental and adolescent reports of menarche are highly correlated. Earlier breast
maturation was associated with slower tempo through puberty. Body mass index had a
greater effect on age at menarche than did race and ethnicity.
Key Words
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent GynecologyAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Pubertal timing and the development of psychopathology in adolescence and beyond.Horm Behav. 2013; 64: 262
- Influences on the onset and tempo of puberty in human beings and implications for adolescent psychological development.Horm Behav. 2013; 64: 250
- Reproductive factors and breast cancer.Epidemiol Rev. 1993; 15: 36
- Recall of early menstrual history and menarcheal body size: after 30 years, how well do women remember?.Am J Epidemiol. 2002; 155: 672
- Pubertal assessment method and baseline characteristics in a mixed longitudinal study of girls.Pediatrics. 2010; 126: e583
- Investigation of relationships between urinary biomarkers of phytoestrogens, phthalates, and phenols and pubertal stages in girls.Environ Health Perspect. 2010; 118: 1039
- Age at menarche based on recall information.Ann Hum Biol. 1987; 14: 133
- Defining the boundaries of early adolescence: a user’s guide to assessing pubertal status and pubertal timing in research with adolescents.Appl Dev Sci. 2006; 10: 30
- Accuracy of short-term recall of age at menarche.Ann Hum Biol. 1997; 24: 61
- Longitudinal reliability of self-reported age at menarche in adolescent girls: variability across time and setting.Dev Psychol. 2013; 49: 1187
- Individual differences in physical changes associated with adolescence in girls.Am J Dis Child. 1948; 75: 329
- Variations in pattern of pubertal changes in girls.Arch Dis Child. 1969; 44: 291
- The timing of secondary sex characters and their relationship to the pubertal maximum of linear growth in girls.Swed Dent J. 1991; 15: 271
- Pubertal development in Swiss girls.Helv Paediatr Acta. 1983; 38: 229
- Secondary sexual characteristics and menses in young girls seen in office practice: a study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings network.Pediatrics. 1997; 99: 505
- The duration of puberty in girls is related to the timing of its onset.J Pediatr. 1997; 131: 618
- Pubertal correlates in black and white girls.J Pediatr. 2006; 148: 234
- Recent decline in age at breast development: the Copenhagen Puberty Study.Pediatrics. 2009; 123: e932
- Progression through puberty in girls enrolled in a contemporary British cohort.J Adolesc Health. 2010; 47: 282
- Examination of US puberty-timing data from 1940 to 1994 for secular trends: panel findings.Pediatrics. 2008; 121: S172
- Age at menarche: 50-year socioeconomic trends among US-born black and white women.Am J Public Health. 2015; 105: 388
- Trends in ages at key reproductive transitions in the United States, 1951-2010.Womens Health Issues. 2014; 24: e271
- Onset of breast development in a longitudinal cohort.Pediatrics. 2013; 132: 1019
- Adolescence and breast carcinoma risk.Cancer. 1999; 85: 2400
- Hormone changes in peripubertal girls.J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2014; 99: 3829
- Maturational tempo differences in relation to the timing of the onset of puberty in girls.Acta Paediatr. 2008; 97: 217
- Associations of urinary phthalate and phenol biomarkers with menarch in a multiethnic cohort of young girls.Reprod Toxicol. 2016; 67: 56
Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 11, 2018
Footnotes
The authors indicate no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Published by Elsevier Inc.
