The age of menarche in Nigerian girls

Abstract

The median ages at menarche were obtained from a sample of 2029 urban and 328 rural Nigerian girls by the status quo method, and calculated by probits. The median age at menarche for the urban girls was 13-70 +/- 0-03 years whilst it was 14-50 +/- 0-09 years for the rural girls. There were significant differences in the median menarcheal ages of the girls according to the level of education and the occupation of the parents, and their geographical residence. The number of siblings and the birth rank of the girls did not influence the age of onset of menstruation. A secular trend towards earlier menarcheal age at a rate of 5 to 6 months per decade was observed amongst children of the professionally privileged group. The earliest menarche occurred amongst girls with university-educated fathers or mothers; in this group the median was 13-26 +/- 0-06 years, a value comparable with current European medians.

Social background and age at menarche in Portuguese university students: A note on the secular changes in Portugal

“…In Europe, similar patterns have been observed in a sample from Brussels (Susanne and Vercauteren, 1997), where the authors found no significant differences due to social background in age at menarche; in Greek girls (Papadimitriou et al, 1999) in the modern middle-class Athenian society, parental education did not influence age at menarche in middle-class Athens; in northeast England the same happened (Roberts et al, 1971(Roberts et al, , 1986. At present, some populations such as Poland (Bielicki and Welon, 1982;Bielicki et al, 1986;Laska-Mierezejewska, 1995) and many developing countries, for example, Khartoum (Sudan) (Attallah et al, 1983), Nigeria (Uche and Okorafor, 1979;Oduntan et al, 1976), Egypt (Attallah, 1978), Haiti (Barnes-Josiah and Augustin, 1995), and Venezuela (Farid-Coupal et al, 1981), showed a significant influence of parents' educational level and occupation. In France, Pasquet and Ducros (1980) found a significant influence of father occupation only between daughters of white-collar workers and farmers.…”

“…Socioeconomic status, often given by parents' educational level or occupation, has also shown a significant influence; girls of lower social origin on average exhibiting a delay in first menstruation compared with girls from well-off families. This was found in studies in Poland (Bielicki et al, 1986;Laska-Mierezejewska, 1995), in Hungary (Bodzsar, 1975), in Khartoum (Sudan) (Attallah et al, 1983), in Nigeria (Oduntan et al, 1976;Uche and Okorafor, 1979), in Egypt (Attallah, 1978), and South Africa (Henneberg and Louw, 1995). Family size and birth order also have shown a significant effect on age at menarche, with girls in large families exhibiting a delay of maturation (Roberts et al, 1971;Billewicz et al, 1981;Roberts, 1984, 1993;Clegg, 1980;Cameron and Nadgdee, 1996;Sánchez-Andrés, 1997;Apraiz, 1999).…”

“…Some populations, for example, in France Crognier and Rocha, 1979;Boetsche and Bley, 1980) and in Poland (Hulanicka and Waliszko, 1991), showed a significant effect of urbanization in age at menarche. However, the effect of places of residence on age at menarche is greatest in developing countries such as Nigeria (Uche and Okorafor, 1979;Oduntan et al, 1976), Egypt (Attallah, 1978), and Haiti (Barnes-Josiah and Augustin, 1995) ( Table 6). The urban-rural differences are probably related to the fact that various important parameters of the ''quality'' of the socioeconomic environment are positively correlated with the size of the town or city.…”

“…Among the environmental factors that could influence age at menarche, some studies have shown the influence of degree of urbanization: urban girls on average mature earlier than rural girls, for example, in France , in Poland (Hulanicka and Waliszko, 1991), in Nigeria (Oduntan et al, 1976;Uche and Okorafor, 1979), in Egypt (Attallah, 1978), in Haiti (BarnesJosiah and Augustin, 1995), in Venezuela (Farid-Coupal et al, 1981), in South Africa (Cameron and Wright, 1990), in China (Graham et al, 1999), and in Cameroon (Pasquet et al, 1999). Socioeconomic status, often given by parents' educational level or occupation, has also shown a significant influence; girls of lower social origin on average exhibiting a delay in first menstruation compared with girls from well-off families.…”

Secular trends in age at menarche among Caboclo populations from Pará, Amazonia, Brazil: 1930–1980

“…Due to improvements in the general pattern of living conditions, especially concerning health care and nutrition, age at menarche in Europe, North America, and other developed countries has shown a general downward trend (Eveleth and Tanner, 1990;Malina et al, 2004a). On the other hand, large differences among social class have been reported for the ''developing'' countries in Asia and Africa, where the gap between rich and poor is very large (Attallah et al, 1983;Oduntan et al, 1976;Uche and Okorafor, 1979).…”