Development
The basic morphological structure of the human breast – female and male – is determined during the prenatal development stage. For a girl in puberty, during thelarche (the breast-development stage), the female sex hormones (principally estrogens) promote the sprouting, growth, and development of the breasts, in the course of which, as mammary glands, they grow in size and volume, and usually rest on her chest; these development stages of secondary sex characteristics (breasts, pubic hair, etc.) are illustrated in the five-stage Tanner Scale. During thelarche, the developing breasts sometimes are of unequal size, and usually the left breast is slightly larger; said condition of asymmetry is transitory and statistically normal to female physical and sexual development. Moreover, breast development sometimes is abnormal, manifested either as overdevelopment (e.g. virginal breast hypertrophy) or as underdevelopment (e.g. tuberous breast deformity) in girls and women; and manifested in boys and men as gynecomastia (woman's breasts), the consequence of a biochemical imbalance between the normal levels of the estrogen and testosterone hormones of the male body.
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Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known for these many years. I am filled with wonder of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)