Hair Loss After Pregnancy

Women have enough to deal with before and after they give birth. Most women know about the common things that may happen to them while pregnant, like bloating, weight gain, possible hemorrhoids, and temporary memory loss. After giving birth women have to deal with a severe loss of sleep, bleeding, and water retention. There are smaller things that happen to many women that are more of an annoyance or a surprise rather than a huge problem with which they have to deal. One of these things that can be surprising is hair loss after pregnancy, but don't worry - for most women, this occurrence is totally normal.

Hair loss after pregnancy starts long before the baby is born. There are a few reasons why you can look forward to losing a lot of hair, but it is not going to be as bad as you think. The reason why you should never freak out is because you are going to gain extra hair while you are pregnant. If you have ever heard women say that they have never had nicer hair than they did when they were pregnant, they probably lost some of it and went back to normal after giving birth. Hair loss after pregnancy usually takes you back where you started.

For some reason, women find that they have fuller and softer hair when they are pregnant. There are a few reasons why this happens. One is that the hair does not fall out as much as it normally goes. It also grows faster thanks to pregnancy hormones and in part to prenatal vitamins. Most women are surprised by the hair loss after pregnancy because they didn't notice that they were losing less than normal while pregnant. They just know their hair seems to be better, longer, and softer than ever before. Some women will not see nicer hair while pregnant, but most will.

After you give birth, you may not see hair loss after pregnancy right away. If you choose to breastfeed, you may want to continue to take your prenatal vitamin. If you do so, your hair may continue as it was while you were pregnant. Once you stop it and your pregnancy hormones are cleared from your system, things are going to change. Sometimes the hair loss happens all at once, which can be scary, but most of the time it happens over a few weeks.

Hair loss after pregnancy will be most notable during and after showering. You will notice that you are getting more and more hair out as you wash. If you have curly hair, it may stick in your mane until you shower and you can pull out huge clumps all at once while washing or brushing. Don't let this alarm you. Just keep an eye on the overall state of your hair. If it appears that spots are showing through or that your hair is much thinner than it was before you were pregnant, you may want to see a doctor. Otherwise, your hair loss after pregnancy is normal and you have nothing to fear.