The Myth of ‘Mom Hair’

glamour.com:

done far less than it was before a child (and before pandemic remote work) came into play, but it’s still long and looks the same as ever when I carve out the time to pay it some attention.This content can also be viewed on the site it from.But the real question is why long-haired women feel the need to chop their hair after having a baby in the first place?

Part of it, I realize, is biology. The wild hormonal roller coaster that is pregnancy often includes the happy benefit of lustrous, shiny, thicker-than-normal hair while you’re expecting—and the not-so-nice reality that it can go away when your body begins to stabilize after delivery.

The scientific term for this type of hair-shedding is postpartum telogen effluvium, and while it’s often erroneously pointed to as hair loss, it’s actually just a delay in losing the strands your scalp would naturally have cast off had you not been pregnant.Just as you’re getting the tiniest bit of your groove back, you’re hit with another physical injustice.“The hormonal changes of pregnancy cause a shift in the hair cycle such that all hairs remain in a growing phase and do not transition into a resting or shedding phase,” explained Dr.

Jessica Weiser, a board-certified dermatologist and founder and medical director of Weiser Skin. “At the time of delivery, there is a sudden change from growing to resting that then triggers an abundant telogen shedding phase.” So the same that might have given you fuller, bouncier hair while you were expecting are also to blame for when it starts to recede approximately three months after delivery.