More girls are starting their periods younger than ever before - scientists think they've finally found what's causing it By Julie Cook Published: 21:21 EDT, 26 August 2024 | Updated: 21:24 EDT, 26 August 2024 e-mail View comments While most ten-year-olds in her peer group were swapping stickers, collecting toys or seeing friends, Milly Watmore spent days each month hunched over in pain due to her period. While the average age of starting menstruation in the UK is 12, Milly is one of a growing number of girls who start their periods young. She was ten when they started, which created problems, especially at school – and not only due to her painful cramps.
‘I couldn’t concentrate all the time in lessons as I was anxious about standing up in case I’d leaked through my clothes,’ says Milly, now 17, from Worcester. And such experiences are becoming more common. According to research, girls are increasingly starting their periods younger than ever before.
‘I couldn’t concentrate all the time in lessons as I was anxious about standing up in case I’d leaked through my clothes,’ says Milly Watmore, pictured at ten-years-old but now 17 A study published in May found that while women born between 1950 and 1969 started their periods at 12-and-a-half years old on average, for those born between 2000 and 2005 the average age was 11.9 years, reported the journal JAMA Network Open. The Harvard University researchers behind the study found that the proportion of girls start.