Hi, all. I missed the early stuff on early menarche while in England and
still haven't caught up, but from what I've read, I think that I go along
with Barbara, in that it's probably mostly genetic (altho I would *love*
to be shown wrong by a good piece of research!)
Anecdotally, my mother *was* breastfed and lived in Hungary until age 9,
when they moved to the States. Mom starting menstruating at age 11. I was
*not* breastfed, grew up in Cincinnati and started menstruating at 10. My
daughter *was* breastfed, grew up in Beer Sheva, Israel (*please note*
extreme change in climate from mom and grandma!) and started menstruating
at 13. Because of change of climate, I expected my daughter to reach
menarche even earlier than I, but no. This is very interesting, and I
really like Becky Behre's theory. Some retrospective study shouldn't be
too hard. Takers? Judy K. in Israel