Hormone Fluctuations During Pregnancy Can Cause Hairloss After Childbirth
Many women are unaware of the many changes that go on in their bodies during pregnancy. Books rarely discuss possible hair loss after pregnancy. They tend to talk about common symptoms like mood swings and backaches. You’ll be hard pressed to find many people who understand the natural hair cycle of hair when women aren’t pregnant. This can make it very hard to understand the changes that occur after childbirth.
Your scalp has thousands of hair follicles embedded in it. Throughout the course of your lifetime, each one of these hair follicles will cycle through three different growing stages about 20 times. Below is a look at these cycles:
1.Anagen – the anagen phase is the phase in which hair grows. Roughly 85% of your hair follicles are currently in this phase of hair growth. Hair grows continuously during this 3-7 year period at the rate of about a half inch a month.
2.Catagen – following the Anagen period of hair growth, the hair goes through a 2-4 week period when it detaches from the blood supply, the follicle shrinks to about 1/6 of it’s original size, and as the new hair starts forming, the bulb of the old hair is pushed upward. At any given time, about 2-3% of your hair is in this stage.
3.Telogen – This period lasts about three months. During this time, about 50-100 strands of hair will fall out each day. Your hair follicles will become thin and weak during this phase. Once a follicle falls out, a new one will take its place.
Hair loss can happen every day as you have just learned. While you are pregnant, however, your hair will experience the cycles differently. The catagen phase is where most hairs stay during pregnancy. They don’t fall out, however, because of the increase of hormones in your body. It’s easy to see, then, that after pregnancy, when your hormone levels return to normal, all this hair that is in the waiting stage and didn’t come out while you were pregnant reaches the Telogen stage and begins to fall out. It generally takes 3-4 months for this to occur before your hair will get back to its normal cycles.
It is very common for hair loss to occur after pregnancy, so you shouldn’t stress yourself. After going through its normal processes, your hair should get back to normal within a few months. Don’t stress yourself that you’re going bald. You’re not!. Doc No. hlsoehasl-sldhgt
Kristie Brown writes on a variety of topics from health to technology. Check out her websites on vitamins for hair loss and vitamins for hair growth