A young girl's first period should not happen out of nowhere; it should never be a complete surprise.
Each breast has 15 to 20 sections (lobes), which are arranged like the petals of a daisy. Each lobe has many smaller lobules, which end in dozens of tiny bulbs that can produce milk.
The female pelvic area contains a number of organs and structures: the endometrium, uterus, ovaries, cervix, vagina, and vulva.
A child's growth not only involves the length and weight of his or her body, but also internal growth and development.
Girls experience puberty as a sequence of events, and their pubertal changes usually begin before boys of the same age. The first pubertal change in girls usually is breast development.
Breast development occurs in distinct stages, first before birth, and again at puberty and during the childbearing years. Changes also occur to the breasts during menstruation and when a woman reaches menopause.
Parents need to realize the rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until he or she is 25 years old or so.
During adolescence, the developing teenager acquires the ability to think systematically about all logical relationships within a problem.
Adolescent attention often shifts to a more intense focus on social interactions and friendships expanding from same sex friends to same sex groups of friends to heterosexual groups of friends.
Encourage your teen to eat three balanced meals a day, with fruits or vegetables as snacks.
For overweight children 7 and older, the initial goal is to keep them from gaining more weight. Changes in eating habits and exercise are gradually introduced to trim pounds.
A woman is generally most fertile (able to become pregnant) a few days before, during, and after ovulation.
