Hair loss after pregnancy

[OldieButGoldie]

My DS is nearly 7 months and my hair is still falling out in shed loads. If it carries on like this I will be bald. I read that due to hormanal changes it may fall out after childbirth but that it should have stopped by 6 months.

When should I start to worry? Once before at a time of high stress my hair fell out and become quite thin with 2 bare patches and I don't want this to happen again.

Has anyone else experience of this?

Did you breastfeed to start with? If so this keeps your hormone levels higher so hair loss can take longer to start again. You won't go bald btw, it's just during pregnancy your hair stops shedding mostly, so it's just catching up a bit.

Mine was still coming out until around 8 months I think. I don't think you have too mcuh to worry about, mine didn't start falling out for ages after the birth, think it depends on the individual. Be warned though - all the new growth means that at 14 months I have a bizarre undercoat of new hair, can't do anything with it and just wishing it would hurry up and grow in fully!

Mine was still coming out 12 months after ds1 was born, at which time I got pg with ds2. 7 months on from his birth I still have masses coming out each time I shower and brush. (Mine was far too thick before the dcs so it has't bothered me unduly).

WMMC - Interested in what you said about BF affecting hairloss. My DS is 18wo and 100%bf. My hair has just started to fall out in handfuls and he has simultaneously stopped gaining weight could both things be indicative of some sort of hormone change?

mine takes about 3 months after the baby is born to start falling out, then it carries on falling out for about 9 months. Did with the last two anyway.

I have ridiculously thick hair and it just gets silly when I'm pg as it doesn't fall out much then.

Yes, I do bf, hair started falling out when DS was around 3 months old. From what has been posted this sounds quite normal and hair loss for a while to come still normal. Hey ho.

Don't fancy the bizarre undercoat thingy

Actually BBM at five months-ish his weight gain will naturally slow and then he'll go through a big growth spurt about six/seven months. But most importantly, by 20 weeks your hormone levels are 20% what they are at 2 weeks post partum so yes your hair may start to fall.

Or you could just be knackered you know, it does make a difference.

Mine didn't fall out at all - I'm tandem feeding now and it's getting thicker and thicker (like a hedge!)

WMMC - Nope this little chap is falling down the centiles pretty rapidly - not gained any weight in 3 weeks and has gone from over the 75th to under the 25th in a month. Sounds like the hairloss thing is pretty normal though. Thanks for replying

BBM - oh dear - that's not good - I have the opposite problem DS has shot off the charts and is being referred because of it! Is he teething? DD only ever lost weight when she went off milk because she was in pain (we started giving her neurofen and she started feeding again).

wmmc - think he is teething but tbh he is happy and otherwise doing well and that's what I think matters most. He's very active and sitting up already - I think that has a lot to do with it..... Hope all is fine with your DS.

Bless you oldie, I lost a lot of hair at 4months. I was left with some bald patches. It was really upsetting but I just got used to wearing scarves and headbands for a long time.

At the time I didn't know anyone else who'd had quite as bad hair loss as I'd had (except one friend who's hair loss was pretty bad but not quite at the bald patches stage!), and it annoyed me beyond belief that the official medical line is that you only lose the extra hair which you'd have shed had you not been pg. In my case this was not the case.

I don't think you can do anything about it, just let nature take its course and your hair will probably grow back with curly bits you'd never had before! My new curls grew back bigger and bouncier (though the rest of my hair was still frizzy!).

I hope your hair loss calms down quickly and that you can stop worrying.

I have lost a lot of hair after ds4, in fact I posted about it some weeks back! I really think it is more severe than on my other 3 boys. Coincidentally (?) ds4 was born with a full head of hair, all the others were almost bald and he now seems to be losing that as well.
Agree with MrsTH, BTW. My hair has never been so thin as it is now but there is that awful downy hair growing underneath and at the hairline.

Thanks MrsTH and cm, I agree that it isn't just hair that wasn't shed during pregnancy, its a lot more than that

It would help if DS didn't enjoy tugging on what's left so much as well!!