Will My Hair Grow Back After Postpartum Hair Loss

How Long Does Hair Loss Last After Pregnancy

Many new moms experience excessive hair shedding after pregnancy. Hair shedding usually peaks about four months after giving birth. By their childs first birthday, most women regain their normal hair growth. If your hair does not regain its normal fullness after one year, you may want to see a dermatologist.

Take A Daily Multivitamin And Hair Growth Supplement

After giving birth, I was so caught up with the baby that I didn’t even think to continue taking my prenatal vitamins. Six months postpartum, I began to take them again to help boost my nutrient intake for a healthy scalp and hair. A multivitamin works great too. I also took a hair growth supplement containing biotin, amino acids, and silica, which all support healthy hair growth.

When Does Postpartum Hair Loss Stop

The hair loss normally starts about three months after giving birth and should be back to normal after another three months, says David. It will then thicken again.

This is because normal hair growth cycle for womens hair includes a growth phase and a resting phase . Anagen happens across three years whole telogen lasts for about three months.

Bear in mind that this doesnt happen on the same time line for the roughly 100,000 hairs and hair follicles on your head. So while some hair will be going through anagen, others will be at telogen. Hair undergoing telogen will be pushed out by new anagen hair.

If the hair loss continues much beyond three months, then the cause needs to be pinpointed, warns David. Occasionally, the hormonal changes after giving birth can trigger female pattern thinning . If this happens, appropriate therapy can be given to thicken the hair.

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When Does Postpartum Hair Loss Start

Postpartum hair loss isnt something most mothers think about while theyre expecting, but its a very common occurrence that happens to 40-50% of new moms. However, like most changes you experience during pregnancy, this type of hair loss is temporary.

Read on to discover when postpartum hair loss starts, along with helpful information and tips on managing postpartum hair loss so you can get back to a fabulous head of healthy hair ASAP.

When Will My Hair Grow Back

You might notice thinning hair within weeks of childbirth, though its not uncommon for postpartum hair loss to take about three months before becoming noticeable. Its often most visible along the front part of the hairline, even though it affects the entire head.

Follow up question: how long will postpartum shedding last? After delivery, hair follicles have to reset in their growth/shed cycle and a remarkable increase in shed can occur for 3-6 months, explained Dr. Lisa Rhodes, a board-certified dermatologist with Westlake Dermatology. So you can expect a period of marked shedding, after which your hair growth will likely have already begun recovering.

An important thing to remember here is that hair growth takes time! Hair grows around six inches per year, which is about a half inch per month, so keep in mind that it will take several months for noticeable new growth to happen.

A few months of shedding plus a few months to start seeing new hair growth, were not talking about an insignificant amount of time here. Most women see their hair return to its normal fullness by their childs first birthday. Many women regain normal fullness even earlier, shared Dr. Vergara-Wijangco.

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Postpartum Hair Loss Is A Dispiriting Reality Heres How I Found Help And Hope

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It started in the shower. I have thick, curly hair and am accustomed to shedding when washing or combing100 strands a day is, apparently, normal. What I was not accustomed to was when, around two months after I gave birth to my son last May, seemingly thousands of hairs began leaving my head every time I shampooed. Soon it was no longer just in the shower: It was when I gently raked my hair back into a ponytail and my hand emerged with a competing ponytail of escaping strands or when my pillowcase appeared to be covered with floating clouds of dark coils or, God forbid, when I actually brushed it and an American Girl dollsworth of hair clogged the bristles. Worse still is that I began noticing patchy spots around my hairline. My scalp was newly visible and I was not pleased to see it. Was the muffin-top of residual baby weight hanging over my C-section scar, and my ballooning, milk-leaking breasts not enough aesthetic trauma to suffer? Apparently not.

How To Grow Your Hair Back After Postpartum Hair Loss

Four months after Benjamin was born, I started experiencing postpartum hair loss. At the time, I didnt even know that was a thingone of those details no one tells you about motherhood, even though 90 percent of women will experience some form of it. I did notice more and more hair falling out in the shower, though. In fact, hair was everywhere. But if you had asked my husband he would have told you that was normal.

I didnt panic at first because I was always wearing my hair up in topknots and thought maybe it was an illusion.

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Do I Have Postpartum Hair Loss

Normally, a person loses about 100 hairs a day . But ladies with postpartum hair loss will notice much more than that. Youll seem to be shedding more than ever, especially compared to during pregnancy when you barely noticed any hair falling out.

Youll notice the extra hairs on your hairbrush, or you may even see some smaller clumps falling out. I realized I had this issue in the first three months or so of having my baby. I noticed my hair seemed to be thinner than usual and saw my hairbrush filling up way more than in the past.

I didnt understand why it was happening, and I felt like there was something wrong with me. It wasnt easy to deal with, but I did take some comfort in knowing I wasnt alone once I did some quick research online about the problem.

So if you see this happening, dont freak out. Its normal and common. Up to half of all women will lose more hair than usual in the first five months after having their baby.

The good thing is there are ways to disguise your hair loss until your body begins to recuperate from all its been through. When I was dealing with this, I learned some great tricks to fake a full mane that Ill share with you in a later section.

How Bad Does It Get

It can vary from woman to woman, and it also depends on how full your hair was, to begin with. Women who had a thick mane before pregnancy may be the only ones to notice their hair loss because theyll still have a lot of hair. If your hair was on the thin side before pregnancy, the loss will be more noticeable, but you certainly wont attract stares when youre out in public.

Keep in mind, were often our own worst critics and we tend to notice things we dont like about ourselves way more than anyone else notices them.

Think about when you get an inch or two cut off the ends of your hair and you feel like its a radical change. Then you go out and no one, not even your partner, notices it. Your hair loss may be exactly like that something you notice way more than anyone else does.

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Can Postpartum Hair Loss Be Prevented

There isnt anything that can necessarily stop your hair from shedding, but there are things you can do to help combat it. There are treatments you can do with the help of your dermatologist, and there are things you can add into your daily routine to help your hair look and feel fuller.

• Your dermatologist can perform a variety of diagnostic tests that can be used to confirm the diagnosis to render the right therapy to stop hair shedding. One of the treatments includes replenishing the iron in your body, or taking specific hair vitamins that are well studied and proven to prevent or treat Telogen Effluvium.
• Maintain a healthy and active lifestyle: exercising, eating well and taking care of your body are essential in hair health.
• Its easier said than done, but try and keep your stress levels low. Stress can contribute to hair thinning and shedding.
• Use therapeutic shampoos containing growth factor peptides to regrow hair, or volumizing shampoo to coat the hair and make it appear fuller and thicker. Also, use therapeutic conditioners: not only do they add moisture to your hair strands, but they add elasticity and repair the cuticles of the hair shafts. Lastly, condition only your ends so the conditioner doesnt weigh down the hairs on your scalp.
• Maintain a clean and healthy scalp by using therapeutic scalp sprays and anti-fungal shampoos to remove scales from the scalp this allows the hairs to grow in.

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Does Hair Grow Back After Postpartum Hair Loss

As mentioned earlier, normal hair cycle is such that your hair is growing back while youre suffering from postpartum hair loss. It just may not feel that way.

Hair starts to grow back at much the same time as it is being lost, says David. So, as hair is being lost, new hair is being generated to replace the lost hairs.

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Postpartum Hair Treatments To Try

Its normal for your hair to thin out after pregnancy. If its not worrying you, you dont need to do anything to treat it. And, unfortunately, there is nothing that has been shown to prevent or slow postpartum hair loss. But if your hair loss is bothering you, there are treatments you can try to make your hair appear fuller and healthier.

Hair Falls Out For Many Reasons

Many new moms experience excessive hair shedding after pregnancy. Hair shedding usually peaks about four months after giving birth. By their childs first birthday, most women regain their normal hair growth. If your hair does not regain its normal fullness after one year, you may want to see a dermatologist. Something else may be causing your hair to fall out. People lose hair for many reasons, and an accurate diagnosis is essential for effective treatment.

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How Hormones Affect Your Hair Growth

In pregnant, postpartum and menopausal women, estrogen is the leading hormone that affects your hair growth.

During pregnancy, your body increases the amount of estrogen it produces which signals more follicles to enter the growing phase than the resting phase of the hair growth cycle. During this time, you may experience fuller, thicker hair. You may also notice that your hair grows significantly faster during pregnancy than it did before you were carrying your little one.

Following childbirth, estrogen levels drop , prompting the hair follicles to enter the resting phase and fewer hairs to grow. After about 100 days in the resting phase, the hair begins to shed.

In addition to the estrogen and progesterone changes in the postpartum period, stress and nutrition impact hormone levels, which and can also influence hair growth.

Thyroiditis, caused by inflammation of the thyroid gland, results in an imbalance of thyroid hormones which can also affect your hair growth.

Maple Holistic Biotin Shampoo And Conditioner

This hair care combo is a suitable choice for women who have just experienced postpartum hair loss. It is arguably the best shampoo and conditioner after postpartum hair loss due to its high level of botanical essential oils ad biotin.

It protects the scalp from irritation as it is paraben-free, and helps to improve blood circulation in the scalp, thereby stimulating new hair growth in a healthy environment. Whats more? It is affordable.

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Does Breastfeeding Affect Postpartum Hair Thinning

According to a 2014 study, the answer is not much! While monitoring changes to the hair cycle during pregnancy and the year after birth, researchers found that, at four months postpartum, breastfeeding women had higher amounts of hair in the growth phase than women who were not breastfeeding.

However, this difference appears to be short-lived, as the average number of growth phase hairs and resting phase hairs during the first full postpartum year showed no significant difference between the two groups of women when compared. So, while an initial difference was found, the impact of breastfeeding on a new motherâs hair cycle doesnât seem to last long.

Faq: Does Breastfeeding Cause Postpartum Hair Loss

Postpartum hair loss is a normal and temporary postpartum change that is unrelated to breastfeeding. Most women will return to their usual hair growth cycle between 6 and 12 months after birth.

Many new moms notice hair loss sometimes quite dramatic around three months postpartum. This is a normal and temporary postpartum change that is unrelated to breastfeeding.

Following is how the hair growth cycle works:

All hair has a growth phase, termed anagen, and a resting phase, telogen. On the scalp, anagen lasts approximately 3 years, while telogen lasts roughly 3 months, although there can be wide variation in these times between individuals. During telogen, the resting hair remains in the follicle until it is pushed out by growth of a new anagen hair.

from Telogen Effluvium by Elizabeth CW Hughes, MD

Normally, around 85-95% of your hair is in the growth phase at any point in time, but the hormonal changes during pregnancy stimulate an increase in the percentage of hairs in the growth phase. As a result, many women enjoy thicker hair during pregnancy, as more hairs than normal are growing and fewer than normal are resting/shedding.

With the birth of your baby , a larger number of hairs than normal enter the resting phase. Since the resting phase is followed by hair shedding , new mothers will experience greater than normal hair loss once the resting phase ends.

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How Long Does Hair Loss Last After Postpartum

Many new moms experience excessive hair shedding after pregnancy. Hair shedding usually peaks about four months after giving birth. By their childs first birthday, most women regain their normal hair growth. If your hair does not regain its normal fullness after one year, you may want to see a dermatologist.