Gabby was 6 years old when she had her first period.
Her mother noticed something else: body hair where there shouldn’t have been any yet. Alarmed, she took her to the doctor, but no one at the clinic had any answers. The pediatric team who treated her in the UK had never seen anything similar and had to start calling other hospitals across the country to understand what was happening to the girl.
The answer came with a little-known name: central precocious puberty, a condition that occurs when the body activates puberty before the age of eight in girls or nine in boys.
Treatments exist — regular GnRH injections — that can slow the process until a more typical age, generally until 11 or 12. But Gabby had already spent an entire year watching her body change too soon, and that forever shaped the way she saw herself.
Today, at 26, she tells her story so other families know that this exists and that they are not alone.