I'm losing my hair!

[CryPixie83]

I'm about 3 and a half months pp and in the last week and a half to two weeks I've been losing my hair. Not the normal few strands that comes out on the hair brush, but a LOT of hair, just from laying down, running my fingers through my hair, dd grabbing my hair, and don't even get me started on brushing or washing my hair! My hair is everywhere, on the bed, the bathroom sink... in DD's diapers!!! Is this normal? Is there something I can do about it? I'm having it all lopped off when I get paid again but until then???

This might be funny if it weren't so damned annoying and I weren't getting married this summer :

[isosmom]

I'm almost 9 mo pp and it's still falling out like crazy!
It's totally normal.

[greyskye]

me too..im 5months pp. my dh says i shed more than my dog (white shep mix). i read some where about this. but from the arsenal of books i read i dont remember what was said to do about it. im even eating alot more efa s like flax seed oil and salmon..still it comes out like sea weed..what to do?

[georgia]

i didn't realize there was something to do about it! i'd love to hear ideas.....i always lose enough to make a sweater!

[carlasher]

I have been wondering about that. I am not PP yet, but I fear loosing my hair like that. "They" say its because you dont shead a lot of hair DURING pregnancy, so the hormonal changes PP would cause that. I dont know because I have known people who have gone bald in some spots. THAT to me is not "normal".

Hopefully, someone else will have a better answer.

[girlndocs]

I have trouble buying the "you're only losing what you held on to during pregnancy" bit. For one thing, the large amounts of hair I lost were all full-length, and there's no way I grew almost 30" of hair in 9 months. For another, I lost so much hair that it's now thinner than it was before I got pregnant. And again, there's the women a PP mentioned who get actual bald spots. I think some women shed much more radically than others.

I would make sure to get a thyroid test done because hypo- and hyperthyroidism can both cause hair loss. Is there any huge stress in your life? That can exacerbate shedding too. Are you getting enough calories for you and your babe's milk, with lots of protein?

In considering hair loss the thing I looked at was not how much I shed (although the larger-than-usual amounts certainly made me sit up & take notice) but what the hair still on your head is like. If it feels or looks thinner, then I personally would feel that it goes beyond "normal" postpartum shedding.

If health, stress and diet check out OK, you might consider taking large amounts of inositol. I started taking it for depression & anxiety, and strongly suspected it's what finally slowed my shedding. There's an inositol thread in the PPD forum titled "A true natural remedy?"

[wasabi]

What they mean when they say you lose the hair you would have lost during pg is that normally we lose hair all the time. Yes I mean full-length hairs. Our hair folicles run in cycles. When we're pg due to hormones and increased blood circulation our folicles don't go through that normal cycling process. So so time after birth as your hormone levels change and blood volume returns to normal your folicles catch up. So you really are losing 9 months worth of full-grown hairs. It can be very alarming. I don't know if it was due to nursing or what but I didn't start losing hair until my DD began to increase her solids uptake. It should subside in a few months but it is a very normal although irritating and frustrating part of the PP period.

Good luck
robyn