Hair Loss After Childbirth: A Good Reason to Get Bangs?
Besides the obvious physical toll pregnancy and childbirth take on your body, there are those unexpected reminders that haunt you months down the road. Maybe it’s stretch marks that are taking their time to fade. Maybe it’s those last few pesky pregnancy pounds or the lack of perfect bladder control. For me, the most lasting and ridiculous battle I’ve faced has been with my hair. Yes, my daughter is 16 months old, and I’m still recuperating from my hair loss after childbirth. (Okay, and maybe a bit of the bladder control, especially now that I’m pregnant again!)
As I’ve said before, pregnancy made my locks thick and luxurious. I don’t think I lost a strand of hair my entire pregnancy. So several months after my daughter was born, I started losing tons of hair. Drain-clogging fistfuls of hair. I was grateful for the slight thinning once it slowed down a bit. My hair started to feel less Fraggle Rock-y and more normal. Until it started to grow back.
It was cute at first—little wisps of hair flanking my temples. Oh, yay, I won’t be bald! But now? I seriously look like a crazy person. The pieces are all couple of inches long and stick out all over my head. No amount of balm or frizz-relief product gets them to cooperate—there is just nowhere for them to go to be tame. The problem is worsened by the fact that I pretty much always wear a ponytail. I can hide the ridiculousness a bit when my hair is down, but that just makes my longer hair a target for a handsy toddler. And I don’t need to lose any more hair from her yanking it out. (Which has happened and YOWCH.)
Now, of course, I’m going through the whole pregnancy-hair process all over again. (And I’m not alone: Actress Selma Blair recently commented on this occurrence!) Eventually, I’ll have a combination of these little buggers still trying to catch up and new little jerks that are passing the point of cute wispyness. I can totally see why women chop all of their hair off once they have a couple of kids. It’s not because they don’t have the time to style longer hair—it’s because they have no hair left and something must be done!
Did you experience crazy hair loss after childbirth? How did you deal with the regrowth after the postpartum hair loss? —Erin