Post Pregnancy Shedding?

[Lisa R]

Hello All!

Has anyone suffered from bad post pregnancy shedding?

I had bub 5 1/2 months ago and I'm still losing quite a few hairs but not as much as I did a month or two ago. I was losing so much it would clog up the shower drain hole then when I was gently combing my wet hair I would get nearly as much. It was horrible and scary seeing so much hair come out every time I washed it or brushed it.

Well today when I was doing my hair I noticed quite a few 2inch length hairs and in one particular patch. I was shocked at the patch of short hairs.

Do you think it is just regrowth happening? I'm hoping so!!

If you did suffer from post preg shedding how long until your hair loss went back to normal?

Thank you for any advice!

[Themyst]

My hair became very thick while pregnant with my son, I was loving it. Then about six months after he was born, it shed so badly that I lost half of my hair. Which sounds bad, but really I just lost the extra hair that I gained and my hair simply went back to its usual volume. I don't know if any short hairs were in there, because I mostly noticed it after showering and just picked up the big hairball I left behind and threw it away without examining it.

[white line]

I had this with my first son. I had noticed that I did not shed at all the last trimester of pregnancy (could have been longer but that is when I noticed it). My hair got quite thick. After he was born, I started shedding again and it came out like crazy. Somewhere around 5 months it finally leveled back out.

[twolunarspring]

I actually had patches of alopecia while I was pregnant - I got a lot of thinning around my temples, and a fairly large oval bald spot just above my neck (so luckily not very visible). I was hoping I might escape the post-partum shedding because of this, but alas I wasn't so lucky! :p I'm not sure when my shedding evened out again, but I think it was quite a few months.

Still, I had pretty thick hair before, so it's not the end of the world, but it's taken quite a bit of adjustment to be able to feel happy with my hair again. And it has regrown pretty well, but the baby hairs around my temple are very fine and curly and pale, and they seem to be growing very slowly indeed. Where I had the bald spot, I now have a clump of shouler-length hair :cheese: though I have put some of that into a dreadlock to mark it as special. My daughter will be two next month.

I think that since having my daughter, my hair is a bit weaker and I have a ton of split ends (compared to before, anyway... I'm not someone who minds too much about split ends, but there are enough of them that it bothers me a bit) which I think is mostly because I just don't take the same amount of time over it as I once did, and in the first few months after she was born I was nowhere near as careful with brushing or combing, because I just didn't have the time or energy for it (and preferred to spend the time snuggling my baby girl!).

[littlenvy]

Three months after I had my son my hair just started to fall out in handfulls. I would touch my hair and loads of it would come out.
I cried like a baby!! My hairline receded 2 to 3 inches. :(
But it all grew back. It took some time and a lot of supplements and TLC but it did grow back.

[anrems]

I had awful shedding around 6 months post partum, the amount of shedding decreased significantly after a month, but I continued to have more than usual shedding until abut 9 months post partum. I also have a lot of little baby hairs now, so I'm hoping it's new growth.

[littlenvy]

Question.
I was breast feeding at the time. Any of you that lost hair, were you also breast feeding??

[Themyst]

Question.
I was breast feeding at the time. Any of you that lost hair, were you also breast feeding??

I was - I breastfed my son for one year, but started shedding five - six months after I had him.

[white line]

Question.
I was breast feeding at the time. Any of you that lost hair, were you also breast feeding??

I was breast feeding. This was the only pregnancy I noticed significant shedding with.

[twolunarspring]

Question.
I was breast feeding at the time. Any of you that lost hair, were you also breast feeding??

I was, yes... and I still am, but the shedding stopped ages and ages ago and was only the normal amount that most women get. It just seemed worse because I'd had the alopecia during the pregnancy :) that hair started to grow back pretty much as soon as my daughter was born.

[littlenvy]

hhmmm .... see now I'm wondering if its the pregnancy + the breast feeding that does this.
Its like your body can't waste any nutrients for your hair and just distributes them all to repairing your body and the milk.

twolunarspring I too breast feed for a long time but the shedding lasted only for a month or two.

[clichepithet]

Hm, patches. I shed the worst (w/ DD #2) in what looked like a male-pattern balding fashion, right in the front. Or what is sometimes called a "receding hairline". It really was beginning to thin and... well, go bald. It began about 4-months post (incidentally, it's also what led me here), and I'm not sure when it ended. She's 13 mo. now, I am no longer shedding unusually. I've plenty of re-growth, which is reassuring, I was worried there for a while. I only just recently stopped nursing.

ETA:

This is it, in February. It is now more filled in and much less obvious.

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=4563&pictureid=65134

ETA: 8/27 : I reorganized my albums and this/that picture is no longer on here. :o

[twolunarspring]

hhmmm .... see now I'm wondering if its the pregnancy + the breast feeding that does this.
Its like your body can't waste any nutrients for your hair and just distributes them all to repairing your body and the milk..

I definitely think it could have an effect. But I'm fairly sure that most women experience postpartum shedding, and certainly in this part of the world, most women don't ever breastfeed at all :shrug:

[Lisa R]

Thank you all for your stories! It is encouraging to know it is very normal. I am also breast feeding.

I REALLY loved how thick my hair felt during the prenancy and I noticed hardly any shedding so I'm guessing that once the pregnancy was all over I began to lose everything my scalp held for those 9+ months.

Looking forward to the next pregnancy when I can feel thick hair again!!:) It's my only time of having thick hair!!!

Thank you again for your replies.

[Fiferstone]

I too had amazingly thick hair when pregnant with my son, and it reverted back to its much thinner state after he was born (I breastfed him for 18 months). I have heard that the hormones in your bloodstream (both yours and the baby's) cause the hair follicles that ordinarily would be dormant to become active and produce hair. Once the baby is born and your own hormones re-adjust to their normal non-pregnant levels, a third of your follicles go back to being dormant (which I think is normally the case) but it happens over a very short time once the hormones are no longer available in the bloodstream. It can be quite shocking.

It takes a while for things to get back to "normal" again and for you to not feel like you've lost most of your hair, but boy, do I wish I was able to keep the lovely hair...and the lovely chest (I'm usually quite small up top)...

[Gypsygirl]

Three months after I had my son my hair just started to fall out in handfulls. I would touch my hair and loads of it would come out.
I cried like a baby!! My hairline receded 2 to 3 inches. :(
But it all grew back. It took some time and a lot of supplements and TLC but it did grow back.

Oh my gosh! No unusual shedding here so far- I was hoping that maybe it wouldn't happen... Now I am scared! :confused:

[LILBERT]

I lost a lot of hair and one patch at the nape of my neck went bald, after my son was born. I cant remember exactly how old he was when it stopped, but i would say by the time he was 6 months. And i breastfed untill he was 13months. Currently pregnant with bubba no 2 and havent noticed any thickening or shedding as of yet :confused: Really hoping not to get the bald patches again!

[Gypsygirl]

I am keeping my fingers crossed for you! Isn't that an awful feeling, waiting for your hair to start falling out- or not? Kind of like sitting on a bomb... LOL

[Peisinoe]

When I had just given birth to my son, the maternity nurse told me "your hair is so lovely and thick now, but it will all fall out soon"

Wasn't very nice of her to say, but lucky for me she was wrong. My hair has always been thick. I think it has something to do with vitamin B levels... Or?

[Chiara]

My hair became very thick while pregnant with my son... Then about six months after he was born, it shed

That's exactly what happened to me. I breastfed my son until he was just over 2, and he was just breastfed for the first 6 months.

I read that the pregnancy hormones mean that you don't lose hair in the same way, it just stays on your head. So when the pregnancy hormones (which maybe get extended by full-time breastfeeding?? although I bet it's different for different people) finally get below a certain level, you lose all the hair that wasn't shed in the last year or so plus the 'normal' amount. I'm not sure I totally agree with that theory, though! It's probably just something about your body's hormones readjusting plus breastfeeding (whatever people say) can be quite a drain on your body's resources.

[GlennaGirl]

Question.
I was breast feeding at the time. Any of you that lost hair, were you also breast feeding??

Hi! I had the same amount of shedding with my non-breastfeeding son as with my two breastfeeding sons. (Three pregnancies.)

In both cases, I didn't really thin to more than I'd already had before pregnancy. My hair did eventually end up thinning significantly after DS3 but that was due to thyroid issues. Otherwise everything did grow back. :) The growing back took a while to really show, but the shedding did only last a few months. HTH!

[HereIGrowAgain]

I was an odd case. I kept all my pregnancy hair until DD was about 18 months old. Then, it all started coming out, just like you've been experiencing. I was panicking, because it seemed far too long past the pregnancy for it to be post-pregnancy shedding. But, a friend of mine apparently went through the same thing, and ended up asking her doctor about it (meaning she started shedding 18 months pp). Her doctor told her to start back on her vitamins to help slow the rate at which the shedding was occuring, although he warned that it would not stop the shedding, just make it take longer (and thus be less shocking?). I went back to taking a daily vitamin, and it did slow down. I ended up with VERY thin spots on my temples. I was very self-concious of them, but they eventually came back. However, like a prior poster, they came back very wispy and light. Now, about two months ago, I buzzed my hair down to nearly nothing, and now the temples are back to their normal fullness. Go figure.

[Gypsygirl]

I read that the pregnancy hormones mean that you don't lose hair in the same way, it just stays on your head. So when the pregnancy hormones (which maybe get extended by full-time breastfeeding?? although I bet it's different for different people) finally get below a certain level, you lose all the hair that wasn't shed in the last year or so plus the 'normal' amount. I'm not sure I totally agree with that theory, though! It's probably just something about your body's hormones readjusting plus breastfeeding (whatever people say) can be quite a drain on your body's resources.

Yeah... I agree with you- and this theory doesn't explain the bald patches that some people get, either.

[LILBERT]

This time round im taking a prenatal vitamin that contains 150mcg Biotin (Pregnacare brand), so it will be interesting to see if this helps or not. Of course theres no real way of telling as every pregnancy is different anyway, but im hoping it might help a bit. I will be taking it through breastfeeding also.

[LILBERT]

When I had just given birth to my son, the maternity nurse told me "your hair is so lovely and thick now, but it will all fall out soon"


Ouch, that was a bit harsh. But come to think of it, most midwives (maternity nurse) ive met, are not very tactful :rolleyes: Or at least, rather straight talking. lol.

[Arctic_Mama]

The sheds are normal and very rarely real hair loss, but rather a return to normal thickness for hair retained during pregnancy. Hormones can do funny things to hair. I have regrowth demarcations from each of my pregnancies, where a bunch of hairs shed at once that I didn't lose normally and therefore I have noticeable regrowth in little layers.

It's not the end of the world, but it can be annoying ;)

[Lisa R]

Thank you all once again for your stories. My hair has finally slowed down its shedding. Thank goodness!!

[Gypsygirl]

And so the shedding begins... To be exact, I think it started last night. If I comb my fingers through my hair, I get at least 2 or 3 strands between my fingers almost every time. I am a seasonal shedder so I hope it's my fall shed.

[ravenreed]

I lost huge amounts of hair after both my pregnancies. Most of it grew back, but not all. I remember having a few months where there was a little dandelion fringe all over my head, and it took a very long time for those hairs to catch up with the rest, which was about mid-back at the time.

[Gypsygirl]

I talked to my midwife on Friday. She said that post partum hair loss occurs as a result of a sudden change in your hormones (estrogen) that occurs soon after you give birth. Someone else already mentioned this- due to hormonal shifts during pregnancy hairs that would normally be shed actually continue to grow. In the post partum ("after birth") phase, they kind of play catch-up, meaning that these hairs go into the normal resting phase which lasts typically 3-4 months after birth. At that time, new growth begins and those resting hairs are simply pushed out.

She said that most women experience some amount of shedding at this point called "post partum telogen effluvium" or something like that and only an unfortunate few experience more serious and noticeable hair loss. Most women regain their pre-pregnancy hair thickness within 6 months to a year. That's because the hairs not only have to grow back but also achieve a noticeable length... Phew! LOL

My midwife really set my mind at ease once again...oh, how I love her! She told me I was pretty unlikely to go through a serious shedding phase because she urged me to avoid gaining too much extra weight from the very beginning of the pregnancy... Sudden weight loss in the post partum period usually makes the shedding worse. She also said that women who maintain a sensible diet and exercise enough prior to childbirth are less likely to have very noticeable post partum shedding.

Hope this helps anyone... Lilbert? :grouphug:

[Katze]

I shed about half my hair over the course of six months. :( Yes, I was taking a prenatal vitamin the whole time I was nursing (with biotin) as well as fish oil. I lost 1-2000 hairs a DAY - every time I touched my hair, handfuls came out.

My pregnancy hair was actually so thick that I could not really deal with it well. Now that the shed hairs are regrowing, I actually like my medium-to-thick hair now. I just wish the length would catch up - I have straggly-seethrough at BSL (I am trimming) and quite thick from my scalp until about crown length. DD is now 16 months old; it stopped when she was about 9 months old.

Oddly, the shedding stopped when I started taking (extra) biotin, though not sure if this was coincidence or not.

It will stop and it will go back to normal. Just seems to be the price we pay for these lovely children...!

[Gypsygirl]

True, Katze.

[Lozzie]

Gypsygirl, you made an interesting point about the exercise during pregnancy, i tried to keep my weight down and did alot of yoga which i think helped, my son is 3 and half months, only started noticably shedding from about 3 months, quite a bit of hair comes away in the shower but im not too worried, i know it will come back, i've had worse hair loss not due to post partum shed in the past!! Unfortunatly, i couldnt breastfeed either and i think the sooner your periods come back the sooner the oestrogen and all the lovely pregnancy hormones leave the body. I guess some people will get it worse than others.. i have really fine hair so im hoping it wont continue for too long.. Plus i look at my little baby's face and i stop worrying too much. Infact i have to be more careful that he doesnt grab my hair too much than any shedding LOL!

Hope all of you are enjoying parenthood and all your lovely hairs return to normal soon. xx :)