So you’ve been waiting a couple of years for your period to arrive. Now it’s here, don’t be fooled into thinking that puberty is now over as your body has lots of developing still to do!

Puberty generally starts 2-3 years before your period arrives and for some girls the signs of puberty can be noticed from the age of 8 upwards. But, when do all these changes stop and you can finally call yourself a young woman? Here, we take a look at what you can expect for the next few years.

YOUR BODY

The body continues to lengthen into your late teens and you are generally your final height by the age of 20.

BREASTS

Breast development can take anything from 3–10 years to be complete so don’t be surprised if your breasts continue to grow, becoming rounder and fuller in shape, right into you late teens or early twenties.

Once your period arrives, your ovaries will start to produce a hormone called progesterone. This clever hormone sends a signal to the brains that triggers the milk glands in your breasts to develop. You may not see any change to your breasts whilst this is happening but it’s pretty important for breast development.

You may also be starting to see a change to the nipple and areola as these are often the last parts of your breast to develop.

REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM

Puberty is a time of dramatic change in size, shape and function of all of the reproductive organs. Just as you continue to notice changes to your body from the outside, you may be interested to learn that those little tummy cramps you sometimes notice can still continue in between your periods too as your reproductive organs continue to mature.

• The vagina grows in length to reach an average adult length of approximately 9cm (this can vary from 6-12cm from person to person).
• Your uterus grows very rapidly and its length can increase from 3.5cm to a final adult size of around 7.5 cm long.
• During the initial years of puberty, your hymen will start to stretch naturally. As you enter the later teen years, the hymen can change in texture and become thicker with folds of skin being noticed.
• Your vulva is the external part of your reproductive system and the part you can see. Both during and after your period has arrived, you will notice a change to the shape and colour of your vulva with some girls feeling that their labia has dropped. But this is not the case, the labia are simply growing and maturing.

BRAIN

Your brain is pretty busy during your adolescent years too, responding to the increases in both sex and growth hormones. It’s not uncommon for these hormones to change your sleeping pattern with lots of teenagers finding they are not tired at bedtime but then overtired in the morning; struggling to get up and motivate themselves. Here are some of the things your brain will become much better at managing in your teenage years:-

• Memory
• Problem solving
• Increased vocabulary
• Improved grammatical skills

What could all this mean for you? You may start to see a more mature approach to the way you solve problems. Very often using new and previously unused words to get across how you feel or to explain an idea to someone either verbally or in written word.

EMOTIONS

The journey from childhood to adulthood can start and end between the ages of 12-25 and is often referred to as adolescence. This is why the emotional rollercoaster teens often find themselves on can continue into their twenties causing frustration to both teenagers and parents alike.

Teens often make decisions without thinking of the impact they have on those around them and react badly when parents question why they have acted the way they have. As you get older you will start to consider others, and see things from their point of view. You will feel able to take responsibility for your actions and there will be times when you feel comfortable saying sorry to those around you admitting mistakes have happened.

So you see puberty is an interesting and long process that does not end when your period starts!

To find out more see the links below!