Hair Falling Out After Pregnancy

You've just had a new baby, and you're still trying to recover from childbirth

. Your baby is fussy and won't sleep at night, you still have a few pounds of baby fat to lose, your pre-pregnancy clothes no longer fit, and the cost of supplies for your new little one is presenting a surprising amount of financial drain. Nothing more could possibly go wrong, right? That's when your hair starts falling out.

There are two phases of hair growth process. One is 'Anagen' which lasts for 4 years to 7 years when the hair grows at about 1-2 cm every month. Another phase is called 'Telogen', which lasts for 3-4 months and is a kind of a resting period for hair follicles. During this period old hair falls out due to new hair growth.

Lucky for you, the hair loss won't be permanent. Over the next few months, the cycles your hair goes through will gradually return to the way they were pre-pregnancy. In a normal day, you will have 50-100 hairs fall out so that new hairs can start growing in. During pregnancy, hormones don't allow this to happen. Following childbirth, as your hormones return to normal, your hair gets the message that there are a lot of hairs that should have come out and didn't.

The hormonal situation in a woman's body while she is pregnant keeps the hair in a strong growth phase. Many will comment to a pregnant women, how healthy and thick her hair looks. This is due to the fact that she is not losing hair that she would normally be losing and so the density of her hair increases during her pregnancy.

There are two stages of hair on a human head at any time. 90% of hair is in the growth stage. The other 10% is in what is called the resting stage, where it stays for three months. After the resting stage, the hair falls out, and a new hair begins growing in its place.

Hair growth is slowed down by estrogenic hormones when a woman is pregnant. This means that hair is entering the resting stage at a slower rate. New hair is also continuing to grow. This means that a woman has more hair than normal, leading to thicker looking hair.

With higher levels of dihydrotestosterone in her body, hair loss after pregnancy is a natural occurrence. The DHT while traveling to the bloodstream begins to bind with follicles and hair strands on her scalp. Once DHT is present in the hair follicle it immediately stops production of hair, causes the follicle to go dormant and in time the strand of hair falls out.

Falling hair after pregnancy often does not happen immediately after the baby is born. It can take up three months or more for mothers to experience it. For first timers, the experience can be quite alarming. There is however, no need to panic. Your falling strands are not caused by the stresses of new motherhood and will definitely not lead to complete baldness.

Unfortunately, this hair loss is happening at about the same time that you are experiencing a huge emotional letdown from pregnancy and you're also sleep deprived. It can be enough to send a girl over the edge!

by: arlenarron

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