Since a woman becomes pregnant and until the end of the post-partum period, the hormonal and physical changes that occur in the mother’s body are many and significant.
One of the most noticeable is that which occurs at capillary level, developing a hair growth beyond the usual during the pregnancy stage and producing a fall after childbirth. This last phenomenon is known as “postpartum telogen effluvium” and occurs three or four months, after having given birth to a baby.
Postpartum hair loss
Just as there is a formation of follicles throughout the body during pregnancy as a result of the estrogen increase, at the end of this stage, there is a hormonal alteration that has the effect stopping the growth phase, which is followed by the fall of a good number of hair follicles within a few months.
This fall has no a long-term effect, insofar as it is a response to that telogen effluvium that has occurred in the organism of a budding mother. However, it is important to keep in mind that after delivery it is common for certain disorders to occur that cause or aggravate the fall, such as, for example, a lowering of blood iron levels.
That is why the doctors of maternity unit usually stress how important is following a balanced diet, rich in iron and, in some cases, enriched with the intake of vitamins complexes and supplements in order to help a speedy recovery of the organism after a considerable effort such as that suffered during childbirth.
Under normal conditions, hair lost during the recovery phase after delivery is progressively restored until a full recovery within the year. Thus, after reaching the maximum level of loss between 4 and 6 months after delivery, hair will regenerate until it is just like before pregnancy within twelve months.
A significant increase in the hair fall levels of a mother is often related to the presence of hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism that, as a consequence of thyroid gland disorders, causes a noticeable hair loss that can be stopped only using a treatment indicated by the doctor.
As for the use of hair dye, during and after pregnancy, specialists state it is absolutely safe having no harmful effects on hair health, both during childbearing and after giving birth to a baby. However, it is important to make sure about the possible consequences of the use of permanent synthetic hair dye, checking that it does not contain high percentages of substances such as monoethanolamine or hydrogen peroxide, since if so it might affect our hair’s health.
We have also to check that another component, such as paraphenylenediamine, is not present in hair dye, because although it has no consequences on pregnancy or recovery after childbirth, it can affect hair growth.
