A baby girl grew a “micropenis” after laying on her father’s chest in a bizarre case medics say should serve as warning to thousands of new parents.

 

According to Swedish medics, the case involved a baby girl who lay down on her father’s bare chest. This is an important part of newborn care called skin-to-skin contact, and which has several health benefits.

 

However, in this case the father was using a testosterone gel product, an artificial version of the male sex hormone. This is a drug commonly prescribed to help men combat low energy and lagging sex drive as they age, colloquially called the “manopause”.

 

By laying his daughter on his bare chest the man unknowingly exposed her to abnormally high levels of testosterone.

 

This led to profound changes to her genitalia, with her clitoris growing longer—looking like a small penis—and her labia closing over resembling a male scrotum.

 

Local media described this a “micropenis”.

 

The concerned parents of the girl, who was at this point 10-months old, took her to medics who quickly uncovered the source of the problem via blood tests.

 

Thankfully, after the man stopped accidently exposing the girl to his testosterone gel her genitalia shrank down.

 

Professor Jovanna Dahlgren, an expert in paediatric endocrinology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, said the case, which occurred eight years ago, was part of a half-dozen similar incidents she cited in her warning.

 

Talking to the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-Posten, Professor Dahlgren said she wanted to raise awareness of the dangers hormone treatments posed to children as more and more parents are taking them.

 

“I don’t think people always understand how potent these treatments are,” she said. “The parents become completely desperate when they understand what has happened.”

 

She added there had been another case where a 10-year-old boy developed breasts after being exposed to a female sex hormone treatment his mother was taking.

 

The warning comes amid a booming industry of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), with a number of private firms marketing the hormone to men.