I'm jealous of my manager.

[angelfell]

She's pregnant. She's 17 weeks. At the beginning of her pregnancy, I'd say her hair was about shoulder length. I'm sure she take's prenatals, and her hair is creeping up on mine now! And mine was a good deal longer than hers when hers was at shoulder length. It's healthy, too. I'm super jealous. Not in a mean jealous way, in a very complement-jealous way :(. I don't wish I was pregnant, but I wish prenatal vitamins were.. not just for pregnant people :p.

Anyone else work or live around a pregnant person whose hair is growing like crazy? I wish she could give me her growth.. she isn't even excited about it :( lol.

[Juicematic]

Yep. I have a pregnant coworker. She is due in February and her hair is almost waist length now. She was shorter than me (MBL) before she was pregnant. I'm totally jealous too!

[MicheleClaire]

There's nothing wrong with taking prenatal vitamins when you aren't pregnant, it won't hurt you.

They're not going to make you more fertile or anything! :D

You should ask her what vitamins she's taking (for a friend :coughcough: ) and take them yourself.

[angelfell]

Yep. I have a pregnant coworker. She is due in February and her hair is almost waist length now. She was shorter than me (MBL) before she was pregnant. I'm totally jealous too!

It's almost agonizing to watch their hair grow away.. faster than ours :). I adore my manager though, she's awesome.


There's nothing wrong with taking prenatal vitamins when you aren't pregnant, it won't hurt you.

They're not going to make you more fertile or anything! :D

You should ask her what vitamins she's taking (for a friend :coughcough: ) and take them yourself.

I might.. I don't know, I just always thought you shouldn't take them if you're not pregnant. I think someone told me its bad. Maybe they just have a bad reaction to them, I don't know. I'll have to look into it! Yeah, they better not make you more fertile.. don't need kiddies at my age :p.

[theodora]

I take prenatal vitamins! They're the kind that you can take basically both while you're trying to conceive and when you're actually pregnant, so perfectly safe. Not sure if they actually make you more fertile but it seems like a very good multivitamin.

[Shelly]

I've been taking prenatals for almost 2 years now. Yes, I was pregnant and nursing but even now I still take them. There's nothing wrong with it. They make a very good multi.

[Zindell]

I might.. I don't know, I just always thought you shouldn't take them if you're not pregnant. I think someone told me its bad.

It's just vitamins. Us humans "invented" prenatal vitamins, but they are still just the same stuff you get in food. Folate is good, but better to take before you are actually pregnant and then keep take'em.

There is nothing stopping you from eating the so called prenatal vitamins whenever. They are not worse for you than ordinary vitamins, they are just the same. (Vitamin A shouldn't ever be over dosed).

I prefer to get my vitamins from real food, veggies and meat etc. :)
I don't feel a need to pay extra to the vitamin industry :P

The reason your managers hair is looking better atm is because the normal 'hairloss' kind of 'stalls' during pregnancy. After she've been giving birth all that extra hair will fall out at once so to speak, and she might feel that her hair gets worse for awhile, but it's just because the hair is getting back to 'normal' again...

[Panth]

There's nothing wrong with taking prenatal vitamins when you aren't pregnant, it won't hurt you.

They're not going to make you more fertile or anything! :D

You should ask her what vitamins she's taking (for a friend :coughcough: ) and take them yourself.

Erm, not entirely true - it is possible to get too much iron from them. The initial symptoms are those that are known side effects of prescribed iron supplementation - diarrhoea, constipation and wind being the most common. I'm not sure what the more severe symptoms of overdosing would be, but bear in mind it is certainly possible.

Anyway, the increased growth the OP's manager is having is almost certainly not due to any supplementation but rather because the hormones associated with pregnancy prolong the anagen (growth) phase of hair follicles and prevent them from progressing through the hair cycle. Rest assured that she will probably have a large shed once she gives birth - when the pregnancy hormones abruptly go, most/all those stalled follicles will abruptly progress into catagen and, once the couple of weeks it takes to progress to telogen and then back to anagen have passed, they will all shed.

[jojo]

The fastest my hair grew was when I was pregnant from shoulder to bsl and I gave birth a month early. Never got that kind of growth ever again :(

ETA- back in my days when pregnant women wore smocks and flat shoes, pre natal vits were unheard of so ive never taken them!

[Jean Stuart]

Erm, not entirely true - it is possible to get too much iron from them. The initial symptoms are those that are known side effects of prescribed iron supplementation - diarrhoea, constipation and wind being the most common. I'm not sure what the more severe symptoms of overdosing would be, but bear in mind it is certainly possible.

Anyway, the increased growth the OP's manager is having is almost certainly not due to any supplementation but rather because the hormones associated with pregnancy prolong the anagen (growth) phase of hair follicles and prevent them from progressing through the hair cycle. Rest assured that she will probably have a large shed once she gives birth - when the pregnancy hormones abruptly go, most/all those stalled follicles will abruptly progress into catagen and, once the couple of weeks it takes to progress to telogen and then back to anagen have passed, they will all shed.


Said so much better than I would have said it, and so true too.

[wooliswonderful]

I went from just past BSL in Oct. '97 to Thigh in Dec. '99. I had a 9 pound 5 ounce girl in between. That was my best growth ever. :)

[FrozenBritannia]

I loved my hair when I was preggers.... it was thick, and shiny, and long... *sigh* My SIL is preggers and she hasn't noticed length gain yet but she says it is way thicker than it used to be. She doesn't take the prenatal vitamins though, they give her really bad heartburn.

Unfortunately, I think it is actually the pregnancy hormones that make the hair grow:p

[Friesian Rider]

Just to make you feel better..... after I had the baby....Major Shed! LOL It sucked but it happened. :rolleyes:

[jeanniet]

It's the hormones, and when those hormones go away post-baby, so does the excess hair. Not the length, but the volume, or at least it did for me. I shed like crazy--my hair is pretty thick, so it wasn't enough to look like it was thinning, but boy, it was annoying. My hair wasn't nearly as long then as it is now, and I'd find hair everywhere (including in the baby's diaper). I'll take normal growth and normal shedding! :D

[Shelly]

My shedding increased after having my baby but not a whole lot. But, my hair is really thin anyway so it showed in the ends quite a bit. :lol:

[wooliswonderful]

I don't remember increased shedding after any of the six kids. :)

[DarkSky]

I was under the understanding that all women of childbearing age should be taking prenatals. My doc recommended I start well before I even got pregnant. As for the hair growth during pregnancy.. I thought it was mainly due to hormones as another poster posted. Those hormones were also responsible for stealing away my 3b curls LOL! :) now 7 years later and two pregnancies they still haven't shown up.

[Alex Lou]

Unless there is a deficiency, most vitamins don't do anything. Pregnant women take them just to be sure. But for those of us who aren't pregnant and eat well-balanced diets, there is no need to take vitamins. They will not make your hair grow faster or thicker.


I was under the understanding that all women of childbearing age should be taking prenatals. My doc recommended I start well before I even got pregnant.
Taking prenatals isn't necessary, but you do want to make sure that you get enough folate. That's probably what your doctor was getting at. It is recommended that all women of child-bearing age get enough because a deficiency causes major problems in early fetal growth! You can get it in your diet or in supplements.

[Safira]

I´ve been pregnant twice. At first time my hair growed like a weed. So strong and shiny. Next time it didn´t grow and that shedding... My hair still hasn´t get over it. The shedding was huge, never seen anything like it.

[Alienor]

When I was pregnant I don't know if my hair was growing faster as I didn't care much about this at that time. But I have a quite big hair loss since I'm a teenager and it was the only time I had no shedding. I did not take vitamins at that time except iron.

[angelfell]

Wow :)! So I learned something from this thread. It isn't soo much the vitamins, but the horomones. That's interesting. Also, didn't know you were supposed to take those vitamins at childbearing age.. heh, oops. I'm rather healthy in general, although I'm sure I lack vitamins in some areas due to the fact I LOVE CRAP FOOD. Heh.

I worked with her yesterday and forgot to ask her what the name of her prenatal is. Of course, I haven't mentioned to her my jealousy yet.. she probably just knows, since I stare at her hair every time she talks to me. She probably thinks there's something wrong with it by now XD!

I'm not very familiar with pregnancy. I was adopted and have no brothers or sisters (WHICH I've ever lived with, by blood, I do out there somewheres). I was never really around any pregnant woman for any considerable amount of time, and have never been pregnant myself (or even had a scare, for that matter). So, it's all fascinating to me.

[Panth]

I don't remember increased shedding after any of the six kids. :)

Ah, but did you breast feed? That causes the levels of pregnancy-related hormones to decrease in a slower, more controlled manner and thus can reduce shedding and/or cause the shedding to be spread out over a longer period of time, thus making it less noticeable.

[wooliswonderful]

Ah, but did you breast feed? That causes the levels of pregnancy-related hormones to decrease in a slower, more controlled manner and thus can reduce shedding and/or cause the shedding to be spread out over a longer period of time, thus making it less noticeable.
Yes I have nursed my children; however with the last baby I switched to exclusively formula early on, within about a month. No increased shedding. :)

[BabyRay33]

There are some gummy prenatal vitamins that do not have any iron in them and I was taking them for awhile until I got lazy and forgot to buy them. Right now I have a stash of the Hair Skin and Nails from Walmart that works about the same though, but they dont taste half as good as the gummies! :p

Check out Walmart if you think your diet isn't the best, when I first started here I took the vitamins I got a burst of growth within a month or 2 of taking them.

[thisischristine]

Hmmm, I'm in my 3rd pregnancy and my hair just stops growing completely when I'm expecting! I don't need to henna my roots, nothing. Very frustrating indeed, especially as I did a big chop right before falling pregnant! Aaaargh!

[Babyfine]

My fine/thin hard-to-grow hair went from shoulder to BSL in 9 months-with heavy highlights in. There's no way it would grow like that with bleach in otherwise. I did quit hi-lighting once I found out I was pregnant.
It thickened up, too.
When I was pregnant with my 2nd child my hair got thick enough so that I wasn't embaressed to wear a braid out in public. (I don't wear braids in public these days) After my 2nd son was born I chopped it all off in a short, layered style.
My hair has never grown that fast or been that thick, since.
I did take pre-natals but I think it was the hormones, quite honestly.

[Vallena]

Okay, this might be a silly question, but I figured someone here would know. Are pre-natals a supplement to or replacement for a multivitamin? I'm not pregnant right now, but have thought about trying them to see if they help growth at all.

[Ginny Mae]

Valena I'd say that they're a substitute for a normal multivitamin - they usually have all the same vitamins plus iron and folic acid but you should just check the label and compare it to a multivitamin packet in the shop. I can't take them because of the folic acid, it makes me really nauseous for some reason. I have the same problem with zinc.

When my sister was pregnant I'd say her hair actually doubled in volume with no added vitamins! She wasn't too happy about it though, she has super-thick hair with a double crown in any case.

BTW I'm also now jealous of your manager's amazing growth!