Warning to parents after baby girl grows 'micropenis' from lying on dad's chest

Daily Record

15-07-2025

Doctors have urged new parents to be careful around skin-to-skin contact in certain situations.
Parents have been issued a warning after a baby girl grew a 'micropenis' from lying on her father's chest. The Swedish youngster's unusual development came after repeated skin-to-skin contact with her dad.
New mothers have long been encouraged to go skin-to-skin with their babies in the moments after they are born. This can help regulate the baby's breathing and heart rate, boost the mother's milk supply, and help with bonding and more.
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In recent years, the advice has extended to fathers too, as it can help lower their stress levels while also helping form an early connection between the dad and baby.
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This Swedish father had been having skin-to-skin contact with his little girl throughout her short life so far, having her lying on his chest.
The issue arose, however, due to his own medication. He had been applying a testosterone gel to his skin, which then made extreme changes to his 10-month-old daughter's genitalia.
Testosterone gel is a treatment often used by men whose bodies don't produce enough of the hormone naturally. But those who use it should be careful of exposing others to the hormone.
The baby was repeatedly exposed to testosterone through her father's bare skin and led to her clitoris growing longer, resembling a tiny penis, and her labia fusing together into what looked like a small male scrotum.
Although the growth has been dubbed a 'micropenis', Swedish doctors have stated that this specific term refers to underdeveloped male genitalia, and not the abnormal situation at hand which was caused by the hormone treatment.
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And medics have issued a warning to parents about going skin-to-skin while using medication that could foster unexpected changes to their child's body.
Hormone treatments involve using hormones or hormone-blocking medications to address various medical conditions, primarily cancer and menopause symptoms.
Hormone therapy can either replace deficient hormones, like in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopause, or block the action of certain hormones.
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The baby's parents were shocked to notice the changes in their baby's body, and subsequent blood tests found she had unusually high levels of testosterone in her blood.
Once the couple knew the source of the changes to their daughter's body, they stopped exposing her to the treatment. When she was no longer being exposed to testosterone, the baby's elongated genitalia began to retract back to normal.
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LadBible reports that while this case occurred eight years ago, doctors have seen a handful of similar cases in the time since.
Professor Jovanna Dahlgren, paediatric expert at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg in Sweden, said there have been at least six similar cases that she knows of.
She is urging parents to remain vigilant with their kids, especially if they are using hormone treatments, due to the risks exposure can pose to their early development.
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She said to Swedish Newspaper Göteborgs-Posten: "I don't think people always understand how potent these treatments are. The parents become completely desperate when they understand what has happened."
And it's not just testosterone that can change the bodies of baby girls, but female hormone treatments can have similar effects on boys.
One case involved a 10-year-old boy who grew breasts after being exposed to a female hormone treatment that was being taken by his mother.
This phenomenon can also occur in newborn males who sometimes see breast enlargement due to being exposed to oestrogen by their mothers, but this usually goes away after two to six months.
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