Living with a Large Amount of Hair Loss After Childbirth
You’ve just had a new baby, and you’re still trying to recover from birth. Your baby is fussy and won’t sleep at night, you still have one or two pounds of baby fat to lose, your pre-pregnancy clothes no longer fit, and the cost of supplies for your new tiny one are presenting an extraordinary amount of financial drain. Nothing more could possibly go wrong, right? Thatis when your hair starts falling out. Hair loss after pregnancy isn’t a new phenomenon by any means, but you can’t believe it’s happening to you. At the rate your hair is falling out, you expect to be bald inside days. Is this new baby truly worth everything you’re going through?
The key to this situation is not to panic. Things will get better, you will adjust to the new style of operation in your home, and your hair won’t continue to fall out at this abnormal rate. The reason it’s doing it now is because that while you were pregnant, a higher share of hair went into its resting phase. Some of the hairs on your head are always at rest and then eventually fall out to allow for new hair growth. While carrying a child more hairs are resting without dropping out, so after you’ve delivered your baby, that’s when they will start to fall out. You may even experience some thin areas or even thinning spots, but don’t worry, because your hair will begin to grow usually again soon.
Even though it’s during pregnancy that so much hair goes into the resting state, it isn’t going to start falling out until roughly a quarter after delivery. Thatis because during pregnancy your hormone levels are so high that the hair just doesn’t fall out, even if it is resting. Once you’ve had the baby, and your hormone levels return to normal, all of this resting hair may fall out at one point. In fact, you can lose as much as 60% of your hair following a pregnancy. It’s wise to prepare yourself for the chance so that when it happens you won’t have a different reason to get upset.
Another thing to keep in mind is that during pregnancy the increased estrogen levels in your body keep more hair growing than would normally remain prepared. This leads to a thicker, fuller head of hair than you’ve ever had in your life. Sadly, this wealth of hair is what is going to fall out after your pregnancy ends and the estrogen decreases again. The best idea is to enjoy the lush, full hair while you have it and resign yourself to the fact that it will not always be there, because experiencing hair loss after pregnancy is standard and temporary.
