Puberty is the period at which persons from the age of nine experience hormonal changes that lead to physical, emotional and cognitive developments. However, this stage is affected in several ways in persons living with disabilities such as spina bifida and cystic fibrosis.
Spina bifida is a condition where the spinal cord of the affected patient gets exposed via a backbone gap. This condition is caused by genetics or inadequate supplement of folic acid during pregnancy and may result in paralysis of legs and delayed learning. Women with spina bifida are affected at puberty in two ways. Menarche in women affected with spina bifida comes early leading to precocious puberty (Soliman, 2014). This disadvantages the affected persons since it comes at an early age when they still have inadequate knowledge and are physically not ready to handle pubertal changes.
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Spina bifida in girls also affects their eventual body size as compared to the healthy girls. During precocious puberty, growth spurt lasts few days and stops. This lack of prolonged growth in bones makes girls who undergo precocious puberty be shorter and small than they would have otherwise been when healthy.
Cystic fibrosis is a respiratory and intestinal disease that affects puberty in two ways. Both girls and boys with this condition experience delayed physical growth. This implies that the affected person will fail to attain a body mass that matches with their age, thus affecting dosage prescription when undergoing normal treatment. Girls with cystic fibrosis delay to achieve menarche as a result of poor nutrition and low body weight (Hak, 2019). Effects of underweight and malnutrition also include irregular menses and absence of menses.
References
Soliman, A., De Sanctis, V., & Elalaily, R. (2014). Nutrition and pubertal development. Indian journal of endocrinology and metabolism , 18 (Suppl 1), S39–S47. doi:10.4103/2230-8210.145073
Hak, S. F., Arets, H., van der Ent, C. K., & van der Kamp, H. J. (2019). Rapid early increase in BMI is associated with impaired longitudinal growth in children with cystic fibrosis. Pediatric pulmonology , 54 (8), 1209–1215. doi:10.1002/ppul.24343
