Study Objective

Several strategies have been proposed to determine onset of puberty without examination by a trained professional. This study sought to evaluate a novel approach to determine onset of puberty in girls.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This study used the Cincinnati cohort of the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program. Girls were recruited at 6-7 years of age and followed every 6 months in the initial 6 years, and annually thereafter. Breast maturation and foot length were performed at each visit by health professionals certified in those methods. Mothers were asked to provide the age at which they believed that their daughter's shoe size had increased more rapidly.

Results

These analyses include 252 participants. Age at increase in shoe size was correlated to age at onset of puberty (r = 0.21) and increase in foot length (r = 0.24). The difference of reported age of increased shoe size was 0.46 years before breast development.

Conclusion

Reported increase in shoe size occurred somewhat earlier and was significantly correlated to age of breast development. These preliminary results suggest that mother's report of increase in shoe size appear to be as accurate as reports of other indirect methods of determining onset of puberty, such as self- or maternal estimates of breast development.

中文翻译：

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青春期开始：母亲最了解。

学习目的

已经提出了几种策略来确定青春期的开始，而无需经过训练有素的专业人员的检查。本研究旨在评估一种确定女孩青春期开始的新方法。

设计、设置和参与者

这项研究使用了乳腺癌和环境研究计划的辛辛那提队列。女孩在 6-7 岁时被招募，在最初的 6 年中每 6 个月进行一次随访，之后每年进行一次。每次就诊时都由获得这些方法认证的卫生专业人员进行乳房成熟和足长测量。母亲们被要求提供她们认为女儿的鞋码增长得更快的年龄。

结果

这些分析包括 252 名参与者。鞋码增加的年龄与青春期开始的年龄 (r = 0.21) 和脚长的增加 (r = 0.24) 相关。乳房发育前增加鞋码的年龄差异为 0.46 岁。

结论

据报道，鞋号的增加发生得稍早，并且与乳房发育的年龄显着相关。这些初步结果表明，母亲关于鞋号增加的报告似乎与其他确定青春期开始的间接方法的报告一样准确，例如自我或母亲对乳房发育的估计。