A toddler in India has been diagnosed with a rare condition known as “precocious puberty” after developing the sexual organs of a grown man.
The child, Akash, is being treated in a Delhi hospital after being diagnosed with the hormonal condition, which can cause sexual urges. The Hindustan Times says the toddler’s parents noticed disturbing physical changes when the boy was just six months old, and his genitalia had started growing abnormally.
They took Akash to the doctor when he was 18-months-old. At that point he was 95cm tall and had already started getting facial and body hair, and had fully developed sexual organs. His voice was also starting to break. The rare condition affects about one in 100,000 younger children, with the incidence increasing to one to two in 100,000 in boys aged eight to 10.
“We thought maybe he was just a big baby, so we did not take him to the doctor,” his mother told the Hindustan Times. “But by the time he was one, it was apparent there was something wrong. “My mother-in-law, who has taken care of several children in the family, also said that his growth seemed unnatural. That is when we took him to the doctor.”
Dr Vaishakhi Rustagi, who is treating the child at the hospital, said: “His testosterone levels were exceptionally high, as high as that of a 25-year-old, because of which he had started experiencing physical changes.
“Since he was so young, he was not able to understand what was happening. He would experience sexual urges too. “Precocious puberty is traumatic for a child of his age and it makes them violent — his muscle strength increased to a level that even his parents couldn’t control him.” “Precocious puberty” is defined as any child who goes through puberty before the age of seven or eight.
It’s a very rare condition. The youngest mother on record, Lina Medina, gave birth at the age of five years and seven months in Peru in 1939, and became an international celebrity at the time.
Her parents had assumed her growing abdomen was due to a tumour. But when remedies failed to cure it, her father took her to hospital. Just one month later she astounded the world by giving birth to a boy — and becoming the youngest mother in history aged just five years and seven months.
