This is driving me crazy. There is hair all over me, all over my clothes, my chair, the carpet. When I go to nurse the baby, hair gets all in his mouth and all over his face. When I lay him on the floor to change him, more hair all over him! There is hair everywhere!!
My MIL and mother tell me this is normal, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. I brush my hair 10 times a day, then clean the brush out and do it again. I have to wear my hair in a ponytail all the time. Is there anyway to stop it, or speed it up and get it over with?
I have no advice except to tell you it should stop soon.I lost gobs of hair after all my pregnancies. On the other hand, I have extremely thick curly hair. I was glad to lose some of it.
FWIW. Nope, AFAIK there’s no way to speed it up–it’s just part of the normal postpartum hormonal adjustments.
P.S. There’s no need to keep brushing the loose hair out. Brush it once in the morning (or whenever you normally make your daily toilette) and then leave it alone. See? You don’t have to “get it out of there”.
If it’s really shedding all over the place, try putting it in two braids for the day–pigtails, like a little girl. It confines it better than a single ponytail.
Or wrap it all up in a headscarf or a bandanna. Or how about the old reliable standard issue Wal-Mart hairnet, or a snood? Get creative.
I have been brushing because the hair falls out and gets caught in my other hair and just stays there. Everytime I run my fingers through my hair I come out with a wad of it. But brushing seems to help for an hour or so.
I like the braids idea. I love braids, but my hair was so short for a long time that I couldn’t do it. That was one thing I liked about pregnancy. I was tired of the short hair and it grew really fast.
Something that might help is to be careful about pulling it back into a ponytail. Be careful not to pull it too tight, and use a scrunchie or soft terry ponytail holder. Something with exposed elastic or hard plastic or metal might cause your hair to break further.
If this is true, and the new moms are just shedding hair that didn’t fall out when it should have, why would they need to worry about it growing back like the other article says it will?
I have no idea, elfkin. My question is… how to phrase this…
It says the loss starts after you stop nursing or sometimes after stopping the pill… if it starts while I am still nursing, could it mean that the birth control effect from nursing has also stopped? I mean, if the hormones in birth control stop hair loss… you see what I mean?
The hair loss after pregnancy is completely normal. It’s just the hair that should have fallen out while you were pregnant and had that lovely thick lustrous hair.
Good point about the birth control effect. You really shouldn’t rely on that as birth control. I know so many people who did that, and popped out baby number two within a year of number one. Use something extra, unless you do want another child that soon.
Officially, using breastfeeding as birth control is called the “Lactation Amenorrheal Method” or something like that. I know it’s abbreviated LAM. The rules are, you can assume you’re not fertile yet if:
you are exclusively breastfeeding, meaning no solid food, no formula supplementation, no bottles of water, no nothing except breastmilk. I think you’re not even supposed to use pacifiers.
It is 6 months or less since you had the baby.
You haven’t got your period again yet.
This site says it’s extremely effective, based on a few clinical trials they’ve done, but I’d still be pretty nervous about using it unless I was fairly well prepared to have another baby soon. That’s just me, though. The statistics do look pretty good.
I know I replied to this! I said that those three things do apply to me so I’m not too worried, but then again my husband’s first two kids are 10 mos. apart (and their mother was breastfeeding.)
Anyway, I did the braids today and it helped SO much! And I look all cute ‘n’ stuff.
