Age of menarche in contemporary British teenagers: survey of girls born between 1982 and 1986

The possibility that puberty is occurring earlier in Britain than previously has caused great interest.¹ Despite the importance of menarcheal age as an indicator of puberty,² there is little information on menarcheal age in contemporary teenagers to compare with data on girls born in the 1950s and 1960s. We report on the distribution of menarcheal age in a survey of British girls born between 1982 and 1986.

Participants, methods, and results

In 1998-9 we studied the cardiovascular health of secondary school children aged 12-16 in schools in 10 British towns: five in southern England (Esher, Leatherhead, Chelmsford, Bath, Tunbridge Wells), three in north west England (Wigan, Burnley, Rochdale), and two in south Wales (Port Talbot, Rhondda). We approached those secondary schools corresponding to a stratified random sample of primary schools in our earlier study³; 62 of 65 (95%) with female pupils participated. In each school we invited girls from the earlier study to participate, with a supplementary random sample of pupils from the same classes.³ During screening the girls completed a confidential self administered questionnaire on date of birth, whether they had started their periods and, if so, their age (years and months) at the first period. Social class was based on parental occupation (using the Registrar General's 1990 classification). Ethnicity was based on appearance and cross checked with surname and parental self assessment. We used SAS (version 6.12) for the statistical analysis. We determined the median age of menarche and confidence intervals using survival analysis with PROC LIFETEST. We included girls who had not yet had their first period (88 participants); for girls providing only year of menarche (231), the month was imputed using the mean value for other girls of the same age in years. Probit transformation² of the percentage of affirmative responses at each age gave almost identical results. In all, 1166 girls aged 12-16 years (1068 European, 79 South Asian, 19 other) reported their menarcheal age (response 66%). The median menarcheal age was 12 years 11 months (95% confidence interval 12 years 10 months to 13 years 1 month). The percentages of girls who reported having had their first period by their 10th, 11th, or 12th birthdays were 0.8, 3.6 and 21.7, respectively; 11.8% had their first period before leaving primary school. Median ages of menarche were similar in different regions (table) and did not differ by social class or ethnic group (see table on website). Non-responders closely resembled responders in age and geographical location.

Comment

The median age of menarche in contemporary British teenagers is around 13 years. In our study geographical, social, and ethnic variations were small, suggesting that non-response bias in menarcheal age was likely to be limited. Comparison with British girls born between 1950 and 1965 (table) suggests that the median menarcheal age reported here is close to or slightly below the earlier findings. Two points emerge clearly from the results. Firstly, any decrease in average menarcheal age during the past 20-30 years has been small (almost certainly less than six months), particularly when compared with the reduction of a year or more that occurred in many European countries (including Britain) between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries.²,⁴ Secondly, even though no appreciable recent decrease in menarcheal age has occurred, almost one girl in eight reaches menarche while still at primary school. This needs to be taken into account when providing sanitary facilities and health information for female pupils in primary school.

Table.

Age of menarche in contemporary British teenagers and those born between 1950 and 1965

Reference	Region	No of participants	Date of birth	Median age of menarche (95% CI)
Tanner4	London	7000	1950-7	13.0 (12.9 to 13.1)
Roberts et alw1	North east England	1307	1954-9	13.3 (13.2 to 13.4)
Billewicz et alw2	North east England	699	1962	13.4 (13.3 to 13.5)
Roberts et alw3	North west England	1274	1960-5	13.3 (13.2 to 13.4)
Current study
	Southern England	575	1982-6	13.1 (12.8 to 13.2)
	North west England	358		12.9 (12.7 to 13.2)
	South Wales	233		12.9 (12.6 to 13.2)
Overall		1166		12.9 (12.8 to 13.1)

Medians determined using probit method in earlier studies and survival analysis in current study.