The breast bud may be a little tender. But don't worry — it's a normal part of puberty. It is also common to have sore breasts around the beginning of a girl's period, or menstruation. During her menstrual cycle, a girl's body produces lots of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone .
Breast Development
It is not unusual for breast growth to start on one side before the other. It's also common for breast buds to be somewhat tender or sore. Uneven breast growth and soreness are both totally normal and usually improve with time.
Breast buds are normal, small disc-shaped rubbery lumps felt under the nipple. Age: they normally occur in 8 to 12 year old girls. They are the first sign of puberty. Sometimes, they are even normal in 7 year olds.
Breasts can be painful when they are developing during puberty. For some people, breast pain is affected by changing hormone levels: the pain is at its worst just before a period, settling down again afterwards. For others the pain can happen at any time.
Breast buds are the most common concern. Breast buds are small, disc-shaped lumps felt under the nipple and areola. Any lump found under the areola is a breast bud until proven otherwise.
Different Variations of Normal
But it's perfectly normal for breast development to start anytime between the ages of 7 and 13. A girl's first menstrual period usually happens about 2 to 2½ years after breast development begins.
One of the first signs your 8-to-10 year old daughter will notice when her body is changing will be breast tenderness.
When your daughter starts to go through puberty, her gonads (ovaries) and adrenal glands (glands that sit on top of the kidneys) release hormones. These hormones cause the first signs of puberty, which are breast development, body odor, underarm hair, pubic hair and acne (pimples).
As your breasts first start to grow, they can be very tender and sore. They may also itch as your skin gets stretched. Buying a first bra can help protect new breast growth and minimize pain. If the breasts grow rapidly, stretch marks may occur in the skin.
Children grow at different rates and develop in their own unique way, so knowing when to buy their first bra can be tricky. Some girls may require support from age eight, whereas others may need to go bra shopping in their late teens.
A breast bud is a lump that develops under the nipple in the first stage of breast growth. The lump may be tender and sore, but it is completely normal in girls undergoing puberty. However, if your child is under eight years old and developing breast buds, she may be experiencing precocious puberty.
Causes of Early Puberty
These hormones tell the body to make sex hormones- testosterone in males and estrogen in females. For most children, early puberty starts for no known reason. It can run in families. Sometimes there is a problem in the brain, such as an injury, a tumor or an infection.
Baby girls (and boys) often have breast buds (thelarche). In girls, these grow bigger during the first 6 to 18 months of life, but are usually regressing (growing softer) by 2 years of age. This is a normal physiologic process involving transient activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis.
Treatment: mainly ibuprofen and support bra. If breast pain can't be controlled with ibuprofen, 80% can be improved by birth control pills. Other treatments: daily exercise and getting enough sleep.
Young girls often develop "breast buds," which appear just before the beginning of puberty. These bumps may be tender. They are common around age 9, but may happen as early as age 6. Teenage boys may develop breast enlargement and lumps because of hormone changes in mid-puberty.
Most of the time, a girl gets her period about 2 years after her breasts start to develop. Another sign is vaginal discharge fluid (sort of like mucus) that a girl might see or feel on her underwear. This discharge usually begins about 6 months to a year before a girl gets her first period.
Periods usually begin at around the age of 12. Some girls will start them later, and some earlier – everyone is different. To start with, periods might not happen every month but from the ages of around 16 to 18 most people who menstruate will find their periods are regular.
Most commonly, especially in girls, precocious puberty is due to the brain sending signals earlier than it should. There is no other underlying medical problem or trigger. This also can often run in families. Less often, precocious puberty stems from a more serious problem, such as a tumor or trauma.
Set clear boundaries. Tell your child that she touched mommy's breasts already and knows what they feel like, and now that she's growing up there is no more touching of private body parts—in public or in private. You can do this while gently lifting her hand away from your breast.
It is very common for toddlers to need to touch their mother's breasts for comfort or to fall asleep for as much as a year after weaning.
Breast pain, also called mastalgia, is a very common condition, especially among women aged 30 to 50. It affects roughly 70% of women at some point in their life. Sometimes, you may feel a sharp breast pain that's actually coming from deep down in your chest. This is referred to as chest wall pain.
According to the National Institutes of Health, puberty usually begins in girls between 8 and 13 years of age, and in boys between 9 and 14 years of age. Puberty is considered to be early in boys before age 8 and girls before 9 years old.
Pubic hair – Once her pubic hair starts growing, you can expect her period to develop in one to two years. It may begin soft and thin but it will become courser and thicker towards the end of puberty.
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.