Exaggerated Mini Puberty during Early Infancy of a Preterm Girl: A Case Report and Review of Literature

Abstract

Mini puberty is the important period of infancy life that can have a serious impact on sexual development in both sexes. In the infants born very preterm and with extremely low birth weight, mini puberty changes including changes in clinical, hormonal, and imaging data are severe and long lasting, especially in girls. It can be called “exaggerated mini puberty”. In this study, a 6-month preterm infant with bronchopulmonary dysplasia presented with periodic vaginal bleeding, Tanner stage 3 breast development, and Tanner stage 2 pubic hair. We did follow up clinical and para-clinical evaluations for the infant during one year and compared the obtained data with those of similar published articles. During one year of monitoring, the case gradually grew to the normal pre-pubertal state, without any hormonal suppressive treatment. Exaggerated mini puberty is a temporary physiologic state in very low birth weight (VLBW) preterm infants that does not require any extra hormonal and surgical interventions.