7th grade boy complains of chest pain when he wakes up, his father panics and thinks he has a mammary gland

April 7, 2022 14:59 GMT+7

Mr. Trieu Duc Duy (40 years old, Thai Binh) recounted a story of tears when his son reached puberty, but the father did not know because “it is so different from my generation”. Anh Duy said his son was born at the end of 2009, and is currently studying in grade 7. At home, he often talks with his father more than his mother.

Recently, he saw his son tell his father that one of his breasts had very painful lymph nodes. Mr. Duy also checked and found that the baby had one side of the lymph node and the other side had no symptoms. Fearing that his child would have a breast node or tumor, Mr. Duy hastily took him to the hospital for examination.

On examination, the doctor said that the baby was in puberty and the swelling and pain of the mammary glands were completely normal. Mr. Duy now only knows how to pull his hair “thought only girls can develop mammary glands, he doesn’t remember what it was like when he hit puberty, so I asked, my father was confused”.

Quach Thu Ha (Bac Ninh) shared that her son, who was in grade 6, also complained of chest pain. Ha thought that only girls had chest pain during puberty, but unexpectedly, boys also had chest pain.

Instead of explaining to her child that it was a sign of puberty, Ms. Ha told her child “is developing breasts to be as big as mom”. His son is scared because he doesn’t want to have a developed chest like his mother’s.

But the case of her son Vu Thi Mai, (Viet Tri City, Phu Tho) is different. Her daughter is in 8th grade, when she comes home, she only complains to her mother why she is old but still “good and bad”. Mai blushed and didn’t understand why I said that.

Pediatric patients undergo puberty at the National Children’s Hospital.

When talking closely with her child, Mai learned that the children who went to school to go to the toilet together and the children who were going through puberty compared each other’s reproductive organs. Mai’s son was criticized by his friends for being small and bad, so they teased him for being good and bad. Mai and her husband were also confused and had to go online to find out and have a way to explain to their children so that he would no longer wonder if he was inferior to his friends.

According to Dr. Tran Thu Thuy – a former doctor working at the National Children’s Hospital, puberty is a time when the body changes both physically and psychologically to transition from a child to an adult. This process usually begins to appear between the ages of 8-13 for girls and 9-14 for boys.

Dr. Thuy said that in boys, the first sign of puberty is an increase in testicle size. A few months later, pubic hair begins to grow. Pubic, armpit, testicles, and penis hair continue to grow.

In particular, the doctor noted that boys can have the same size as an adult’s penis at the age of 13 or as late as at the age of 18. At first, the penis will grow in length, then in width. Teenage boys tend to spend more time observing their penises and may surreptitiously compare them to other boys’ penises.

Most boys do not know that sexual function is independent of the size of the penis, or that the size of a penis when it is flaccid does not necessarily correspond to its size when erect. Parents can relieve their child’s concerns by telling them in advance.

Males achieve maximum height growth 2-3 years later than females. This usually begins with the hands and feet enlarge, then the arms and legs, trunk and chest grow.

Other changes include a deeper voice, enlarged muscles, the ability to get an erection and ejaculate (especially spontaneous ejaculation, aka ‘wet dream’).

In some boys, breasts may develop, painful swelling of the mammary glands. The breasts will grow to become firmer and bulge with a diameter of about 2 cm around the nipple. Sometimes this becomes excessive, becoming the “masculine” phenomenon that is common in obese children.

Dr. Thuy said the changes of the baby’s body continued for a long time. Puberty is complete after 3-4 years with pubic hair, testes and penis reaching adult size. Next the chest and beard grow. Boys reach their peak growth rate slower than girls, usually by the age of 14.

For children at puberty, parents need to pay more attention to their children, strengthen sex education to avoid sexual abuse situations or children learn on their own due to curiosity, causing unfortunate consequences.

Khanh Chi