Do I have to understand this?
We know that (different) sex development is complex, and it can take time to learn about the different pathway your baby or child has taken. If you don’t understand something, go back to your medical team. Always feel free to ask questions: all questions are good questions! What is really helpful – and what this overview shows - is to remember that there are many ways a baby can develop differently. You are not alone in your hopes and your concerns. And understanding how your baby developed (with or without a specific diagnosis) can be really helpful when you begin to think about talking to your child about their health and when considering how to use day-to-day situations as building blocks for your child’s learning about how she or he developed.
From early on you can for example use child-friendly books about how bodies work and grow to teach your child about ‘genes’ and ‘hormones’ and try to talk about how we all have genes and hormones. As your child grows up they will get used to those words, and they won’t be scary or strange. For more information on Talking to Children about DSD please visit these pages.
More info?
dsdfamilies is applying for funding to produce dedicated information hubs, with specific info per condition covering pre-natal development to puberty, what it means and how you can talk about it. Do feel free to write to us on info@dsdfamilies.org with your questions and we will try to include those in our information hubs. Please also note that as we are developing the website we will connect the information in the tables on the following pages, with the information in our ‘Story of Sex Development’.
