An 18-month-old with pubic hair? One doctor warns about the dangers of testosterone gel

It's hard to give a puberty talk to someone still in Pampers

Your baby is developing quickly. His cheeks are pink and healthy, he’s an ace at maneuvering food into his mouth, and you swear the last time you popped in a Baby Einstein video he muttered the word “trite.” But what if you went to change your baby’s diaper and found a crop of pubic hair?

If you thought the 19-pound baby born in Indonesia this year was eyebrow-raising, imagine a father reporting that his baby had sprouted pubic hair—and finding out that he was the culprit. According to Dr. Irwin Goldstein, the editor-in-chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine and director of the sexual medicine program at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, this strange scenario isn’t fiction. The father of the fuzzy infant had applied a topical testosterone gel to his leg and then bounced his baby on his lap, causing casual transfer of the testosterone gel from his leg to his baby.  Luckily, the growth of the pubic hair ceased and reversed when the infant was no longer exposed to the gel.

There are other reports of testosterone creams and sprays used by men transferring to women and children upon contact. Kids as young as 18 months old exposed to testosterone gel have grown pubic hair, acne and, in some long-term cases, their skeletal size increased.  When the children were no longer exposed to the testosterone gel, the onset of puberty stopped. Women, particularly the post-menopausal demographic, exposed to the gel exhibited increased hair growth on the face and body, deepening of voice and increased muscle mass.

“Testosterone levels in women and children is typically less than 5%-10%, therefore any slight increase or exposure to testosterone by skin-to-skin cancer can have immediate and negative implications,” said Dr. Goldstein.  “In cases where the men’s testosterone gel affected the spouse and children, some men switched to patches and their family members no longer experienced the side effects once the exposure to testosterone ceased.” 

* Alvarado Hospital is a 306-bed acute care hospital that also operates the Advanced Spine Institute and the San Diego Rehabilitation Institute. A special thanks to Sandy Nesheiwat for providing this article’s information.