The Swedish Medicines Agency has received a total of 20 reports dealing with children exposed to estrogen drugs and showing signs of puberty, which P4 Stockholm was the first to report. Regarding testosterone, seven reports have been received.
The children are of all ages, the youngest only ten months old, says Anna Olivecrona, pediatrician at Karolinska University Hospital.
- We see more and more children showing signs of puberty, where we find that the cause is exposure to gels and sprays of estrogen and testosterone preparations that adults have used, says Anna Olivecrona and continues:
- We have been talking about secondary exposure to estrogen for young children for many years, but we have not seen it on this scale.
Children exposed to estrogen have, among other things, shown signs of growth acceleration and breast growth. In children who have been exposed to testosterone preparations, in addition to growth acceleration, side effects such as enlargement of the penis and genital hair appear.
Anna Olivecrona links the increase to the increasingly widespread use of hormonal drugs in Sweden. She fears that there is a large number of affected children in the dark.
- The number of people being treated with hormone preparations has increased explosively, and people like to choose the preparations that give less side effects for adults. I think that the figures from the Swedish Medicines Agency are the tip of the iceberg because in any case they are not reported. I can't answer why, it could be for various reasons.
According to the Swedish Medicines Agency, approximately one in three women experience menopausal symptoms so severe that they seek care. While hormone tablets can increase the risk of blood clots, the availability of hormone patches is limited in Sweden. This may explain why many people choose creams and sprays instead.
- Tablets, syringes and plasters do not cause side effects on children. However, adults risk more side effects when it comes to estrogen, says Anna Olivecrona.
Tina Crafoord, director at the Swedish Medicines Agency, points out that in 2025 there were almost 95,000 people in Sweden who used estrogen drugs in the form of gels or sprays and 21,000 people who used the corresponding testosterone preparations.
Percentage wise, children who get secondary side effects are not very many.
- Each case is of course one too many, we want it to be zero, says Tina Crafoord.
Doctors do not know exactly how much exposure is required for a child to absorb the preparations, but Anna Olivecrona says that it is not very much.
- Children have very thin skin, so they absorb these preparations very easily and easily get high concentrations in the blood. Very little gel and spray affects the children very much, she says.
It does not necessarily have to be a child's parent who is on hormonal drugs, but children can also be exposed through contact with other relatives. Anna Olivecrona reminds to wear clothes over the smeared area and to wash your hands after use.
- There are various cases of family constellations, for example cases where one of the parents is on estrogen preparations, even when the child is very small. There can also be situations where mother, grandmother and children live together, she says.
If exposure stops, hormone levels normally go back down and side effects such as breast growth may go away, but this is not a guarantee. Growth acceleration and penis enlargement are often permanent.
In some cases, the hormone drugs can "kick start" the child's true puberty, i.e. the one that is normally triggered by the pituitary gland in the brain when approaching adolescence.
- A puberty that should start when a girl is perhaps eight, nine or ten or eleven years old, can be triggered already when she is much younger. Then it has happened that we have to go in with blocking treatment to stop puberty, says Anna Olivecrona.
