Hello to Your Baby, Farewell to Your Hair

There are a few women who had never had problems with breaking hair until a few weeks after giving birth to their first baby. A usually-thick hair tends to thin, especially around the hairline. This occurrence is normally expected of a new mom. With all the advice women receive about pregnancy, hair loss is barely mentioned.

New mothers are usually too busy nursing their newborn babies to notice it. When you think about it, it can come off as terribly vain for a new mother to fuss about her receding hairline or brittle hair when she has a new baby to be excited about. Yet a big number of women suffer some form of hair loss immediately after childbirth up to about the time they wean their babies. Doctors say that hair loss could go on up to about six weeks after birth.

Hormonal changes

The explanation behind the sudden thinning and breaking of hair is hormonal changes. Suddenly, most women come from the luxurious thick hair during pregnancy to dealing with breaking hair. It is a ‘transitional phase’, where the body is trying to get rid of the pregnancy hormones and go back to its pre-pregnancy form.

Hair is in different phases of growth at any one time. Some hair follicles are actively growing while others are in the resting stage and end up causing hair breakage. During pregnancy, the increased hormone levels cause a woman to have more actively growing hair, thus explaining the rich growth. But after giving birth, the body normalises the hormone levels, thus the thinning.

Some hormones are responsible for the growth of thicker hair during pregnancy which is also manufactured in the placenta and only discontinues immediately after giving birth.

Hair loss after birth is normal

There is no cause for an alarm in case your hair breaks after giving birth to a child. Some women don’t even notice the change. But even for those who lose a considerable amount of it with an evident receding hairline, it grows back once the hormones stabilise. Usually, the thinning and breaking of hair stops after a couple of weeks.

In cases where it may be serious, there are creams/tubes which can help. But these have to be prescribed by a doctor after establishing that indeed the situation is that bad. Hair loss is one of the several dermatological changes women experience during and after pregnancy. In the months following a pregnancy, most women go back to their normal selves. Other conditions include hyper-pigmentation and acne among others.

Go for simple hairstyles

Knowing that the hair is not growing as expected, simple hairstyles that do not strain the hair are a good beginning. Excessive heat treatment and harsh chemicals at this time are not a good idea as the hair is already weak. One can creatively use hair bands and scarves to conceal a thinning hairline, or plait styles that both give the hair rest for a few weeks, and cover the hairline.