Natural Journeys: My Sisterlocks and stuff

The article Early Bloomers about premature puberty in the August 2008 issue of Natural Awakenings (you know that the FREE publication you can pick up at your local library or health food store) caught my attention as a mother of 3 daughters under 8 years old. Particularly the following excerpt: Another study of Michigan children, who had accidentally been exposed in utero to polybrominated biphenyls (common fire retardants), reported that the girls ended up menstruating one year earlier than the control group. Yet another study pointed to estrogen-mimicking compounds found in the hair products of African-American women as a factor in hastening the puberty of their children. In addition to chemicals and obesity, experts have implicated hormones in milk, meat and soy. Others hypothesize that a girl raised in a home with a man other than her biological father, such as a stepfather, can physiologically react to his chemical scents, called pheromones, setting her own hormonal cascade into m...