FGM and premature menstruation (possibly TMI)

I was going through my old collection of Reader’s Digests today, and I found a feature by Waris Dirie about her “circumcision” at the age of five (:(). She said her period began prematurely after the procedure but I don’t understand how that would work. I mean, how would superficial alterations to her genitals have any effect on her menstrual cycle?

It could’ve just been a coincidence.

Correlation does not mean causation.

It sounded like she thought that’s what caused it, but okay. This sounds more reasonable.