Nothing prepared me for the almighty shedding that began at about four months postpartum and now at six months shows no signs of slowing. I’ve always had a somewhat ridiculous amount of hair and am no stranger to moulting, clogging drains with my hair and forever finding shed strands no longer attached to my head but its nothing compared to postpartum hair loss.
Handfuls and I actually mean handfuls every time I wash my hair, brush my hair, tie my hair up or breath to heavily (well maybe not that but it feels like it) I wake up in the morning to a little pile of hair strewn across my pillows. I spend time untangling hair from my son’s tiny hands. I try my hardest not to ruin our plumbing with the masses of hair that make its way into the drains.
Yeh, it’s only hair but it doesn’t stop it feeling pretty traumatic at the time. I posted my thoughts on the subject to Instagram and have been assured by others who have been there already that it stops eventually. It does seem that every person experiences it differently and the regrowth phase is not ideal but does happen.
Despite the fact that my pre-pregnancy hair was massive and unruly it was also pretty glorious when I bothered to do something with it. During pregnancy, I would joke that I could stand to lose some hair and it might finally give me a normal manageable amount. This was obviously under the completely false impression that it would fall out in a nice uniform fashion and definitely not in little patches. It was at about five months postpartum, a phase I shall now refer to as peak mum bun, that I suddenly became aware that my hairline had radically changed on one side. A lovely picture of me and my son in a swimming pool was taken and all I could see was what looked like the most ridiculously receding hairline. On closer inspection, I thankfully did still have some hair there but a lot less, a lot lot less than usual. So my mum bun days are now behind me (I have actually been wearing my hair in a no fucks given bun for years because I’m lazy and there is lots of it) and I have been forced to wear my hair down or tied back in a low ponytail with what used to be a fringe strategically placed over my receding bits.
I largely avoided googling anything to do with this as I already knew that it was normal and there is nothing you can really do about it. I did get curious enough to look up how long it takes to stop and like anything it varies but shedding should stop somewhere between six to twelve months postpartum and the normal hair loss/growth cycle should return. If it goes on past twelve months it can be a sign of something else such as hypothyroidism or iron deficiency anaemia. So I am hoping that anytime now it will stop for me or at least calm down a bit so I don’t feel like I’m going bald.
I’ll just be over here patiently awaiting the return of my once glorious mane.
bountiful (and blonde!) pregnancy hair
fancy hair 11 weeks postpartum
strategically styled hair 5 months postpartum
