Puberty blockers are medicines that prevent puberty from happening. They work by blocking the hormones — testosterone and estrogen — that lead to puberty-related changes in your body. This stops things like periods and breast growth, or voice-deepening and facial hair growth.
Puberty blockers can be used to delay the changes of puberty in transgender and gender-diverse youth who have started puberty. The medicines most often used for this purpose are called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues.
There are no known irreversible effects of puberty blockers. If you decide to stop taking them, your body will go through puberty just the way it would have if you had not taken puberty blockers at all.
Under 18s. In Australia, trans young people may commence puberty blockers with permission from both carers or guardians, and their doctor. This is usually coordinated through a multi-disciplinary team, when available.
Medical practitioners seeing patients under the age of 18 are unable to initiate puberty blockers or gender affirming hormonal treatment without first ascertaining whether or not a child's parents or legal guardians consent to the proposed treatment.
Puberty blockers could be considered at the earliest stages of puberty, which for girls is around ages 8 to 13 and typically two years later for boys.
Puberty blockers (also called suppressors) are medications that delay the changes that come with sexual maturity. These medications can stop menstrual periods and the growth of breasts, or stop the deepening of the voice and the growth of facial hair.
Puberty blockers are medicines that prevent puberty from happening. They work by blocking the hormones — testosterone and estrogen — that lead to puberty-related changes in your body.
Are Puberty Blockers Safe? Most experts, including our team, believe that puberty blockers are safe: The Endocrine Society and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health support the use of puberty blockers for kids who want to delay or prevent unwanted physical changes.
The number of children who started on puberty-blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 over the five-year period, rising from 2,394 in 2017 to 5,063 in 2021, according to the analysis.
Taking puberty blockers alone should not affect your ability to have a baby in the future. But if you also take estrogen or testosterone, this can affect it. If your body has ovaries that produce eggs, taking testosterone can affect the ability to produce them.
Avoid exposure to hormones.
Keep your children away from medications, creams, and lotions that contain reproductive hormones like estrogen and testosterone. This is the best way to avoid early puberty, as it cannot be prevented in most cases.
The new guidelines include starting medication called puberty blockers in the early stages of puberty, which for girls is around ages 8 to 13 and typically two years later for boys.
Pubertal blockers are available as an injection or as an implant which is placed under the skin. These medications are effective for anyone regardless of gender. They can be started just after the early physical changes of puberty, but are sometimes used in older adolescents who have gone through puberty.
The actual spurt was then smaller and, moreover, puberty occurred earlier. In the category of children with lower BMI and later onset of puberty, the spurt was all the stronger. Those whose puberty was delayed also had several extra years to grow in, and quite simply ended up taller.
Puberty blockers delay the start of puberty, including development of secondary sex characteristics. Surprisingly, even though puberty blockers are widely used to help transgender adolescents go through gender transition, their impact on brain function during this critical stage of brain development is largely unknown.
to be linked to a suppression of the activity of neurons involved in releasing a hormone that triggers the ovulation process (menstruation). The researchers concluded that these results suggest that vitamin D may inhibit early pubertal onset and/or the rapid progression of puberty.
Once it begins, it lasts about 2 to 5 years. But every child is different. And there's a wide range of what's normal. Your child may begin puberty a little earlier or later and finish sooner or later than their friends.
The diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents and Adults can occur at any age. For those who experience gender dysphoria later in life, they often report having secretly hidden their gender dysphoric feelings from others when they were younger.
The exact cause of gender dysphoria is unclear. Gender development is complex and there are still things that are not known or fully understood. Gender dysphoria is not related to sexual orientation. People with gender dysphoria may identify as straight, gay, lesbian or bisexual.
The cost of puberty blockers is approximately $1,200 per month for injections and can range from $4,500 to $18,000 for an implant. The least expensive form of estrogen, a pill, can cost anywhere between $4 to $30 a month, according to Simons, while testosterone can be anywhere between $20 to $200 a vial.
It is normal for production of these hormones to increase (something we call adrenarche) and for pubic hair to appear after age 8 in girls or 9 in boys. The reason why this increase occurs earlier in some children is not known.
For example, some Planned Parenthood health centers only provide HRT to patients who have parental consent and are at least 16 years old, while others only provide HRT for ages 18+. Other doctors may prescribe hormones to patients who are 12 and up with parental consent.
Doctors can prescribe estrogen or testosterone at gradually higher amounts to mimic the puberty of the female or male gender. The Endocrine Society recommends that kids start taking these hormones around age 16, but doctors will start them as early as 13 or 14.