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Pregnancy

Dramatic video shows the reality of postpartum hair loss

Dramatic video shows the reality of postpartum hair loss

by

Melissa Willets

posted in Pregnancy

After each of my pregnancies I knew losing my hair was a possibility, having heard other moms talk about this icky postpartum reality. But when you’re standing in the shower and you pull out a chunk of your hair it’s still shocking, no matter how many times it’s happened, or how prepared you are for your mop to jump scalp.

Postpartum hair loss is the result of changing hormone levels after birth. There’s no way to make it stop, other than giving it time, but a haircut might minimize the amount of hair you’re fishing out of the shower drain, or Swiffering off the floor.

Perhaps that was thought process of this mom, whose recent salon visit was captured in a video posted to Utah stylist Christina Kreitel’s Instagram. The short clip features the moment a chunk of her long hair is easily pulled out. It’s both cringeworthy and super-relatable.

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“It’s my client, but I’m going through it too,” Kreitel told BabyCenter in an email about the dramatic video, which has been viewed over 2.2 million times at time of writing.

As I said, I am no stranger to postpartum hair loss. Judging from the comments to the salon owner’s post, many moms are also familiar with post-baby hair shed. But others said they had never experienced their tresses thinning postpartum. Or maybe they were so busy with baby, they just didn’t notice!

Meanwhile, another time my hair started falling out in clumps was after I completed a recent cycle of IVF. I’m guessing my mane is becoming diminished for the same reason it does after a pregnancy: the sharp drop in hormone levels.

Lately, I’m washing my hair and inadvertently pulling out stand after strand. I roll the hairs into balls and line them up on the shower ledge to throw away when I’m done. Sorry if that’s TMI!

But here are more details you may wish you didn’t know: My brush looks like it’s got a head of hair of its own.

Postpartum hair loss is always a shock

And I’m at war with my bathroom floor, constantly sweeping up the hair only to find more long hair covering the tiles moments later. The backs of my shirts are literally coated with my hair. It’s so frustrating!

I guess postpartum hair loss and its cousin, post-IVF hair loss, are just part of the price we pay for having babies, right?

Have you experienced hair loss either from pregnancy or after IVF? 

Images by iStock

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