Background: Menarcheal age is the age at which menstruation begins. Menarcheal age is regarded as a sensitive indicator of physical, biological, and psychological environment.
Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the menarcheal age of school going bania girls belonging to middle socioeconomic status from Punjab.
Materials and Methods: The present cross sectional study was carried out on 200 bania girls who were about to reach menarche. All such selected volunteer bania girls were in their pre-menstrual phase of development. Once a volunteer student attained the age of onset of menarche that is she had her first menses by the time of assessment. Data were collected using a predesigned self-administrated structured questionnaire including general demographic information, caste, and socioeconomic status.
Results: Data were entered and analysed by using SPSS software.The median age of onset of menarche in these girls was 12.3 years.
Conclusion: The present research has revealed a secular trend over time of decreasing age at menarche from 12.8 to 12.3 in the past 15 years when compared with earlier study on bania girls. This might be attributed to better nutritional status and better hygienic practices in bania girls as these factors lead to lower age of menarche. Another cause might be the excessive use of pesticides for vegetables lead to presence of oxytocin that disrupt glands that controlling reproductive system leading to early menarche.
Key words: Menarche, bania girls, socioeconomic status
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