Why does hair fall out after childbirth with HB and what methods of treatment exist?
Many women experience hair loss after childbirth. And although everyone around him reassures that this will temporarily and gradually pass away, hair loss greatly disturbs the newly made mothers and causes discomfort. This is especially true for owners of luxurious hair, which the woman has always been proud of.
What is the reason?
Pregnancy and childbirth require the mobilization of all resources from the female body. All organs and systems work with maximum power, with the exception of immunity, which is in a pregnant woman in a depressed state. If the immune defense were not suppressed by hormones, the immunity would simply destroy the germ as half a genetically alien creature.
During pregnancy, a woman generously gives the child everything he needs for growth and development. Baby maternal blood draws calcium, iron, vitamins, oxygen. But the woman’s own reserves of nutrients are not unlimited and the same calcium cannot be stored for future use, and therefore, after childbirth, the female body faces not only the need to live for some time with a weakened immune status, but also replenish vitamin and mineral costs.
Breastfeeding complicates the situation: the child continues to take nutrients from her tired mother, and therefore various forms of beriberi can start exactly during lactation. Hair falls out on a combination of these two reasons.
The stronger the female's need for vitamins, the weaker her immunity, the more strongly her hair, which a year ago was luxurious and healthy, climbs.
But the problem would be easily solved if there were only two reasons. It would be enough to drink vitamins, relax and take immunostimulants so that there are no problems with hair. However, in practice, everything is much more complicated.
The structure of the hair of a woman is greatly influenced by hormones. Everyone knows that during menstruation they do not perm and do not dye their hair - the effect may be unexpected. After childbirth, the puerperal generates global hormonal changes, the level of progesterone decreases, the level of estrogen, prolactin increases, and hair follicles are one of the first to react to such changes.
The very process of childbirth - a lot of stress, the postpartum period is also hectic, nervous: The newly-born mother is experiencing, not getting enough sleep, is anxious, is in tension - and this is another one of the causes of hair loss after the birth of a child.
This is followed by another reason - anesthesia. If during childbirth epidural anesthesia was used, general anesthesia was done for caesarean section, then hair loss is aggravated by the deleterious effects of muscle relaxants and analgesics on metabolic processes, including those occurring in the hair follicles and hair shaft.
Lack of time to take care of yourself is another good reason. Have you seen many new mothers who have time to take care of babies, and decant the milk, wash, cook, and gently meet the husband, and at the same time carry out hair treatments?
When such an mom has an hour of time, she most likely prefers to spend it in a state of sleep in order to at least compensate for a chronic lack of sleep.And the hair after childbirth need special care, and when it is not there, their loss increases.
The tragedy of hair loss, of course, should not be done, but letting it drift is also criminal negligence. Watch out for drop rate. 100 hairs per day is the norm, which should not be disturbing.
If 300 to 500 hairs fall out, this is a reason to visit a trichologist (a doctor who deals with problems of hair and can identify the causes). To keep the hair in a beautiful form, you need to make an effort and highlight in the busy schedule of the young mother at least half an hour a day to devote this time to the hair.
How to choose the means for treatment?
Given that the period of lactation is a very crucial period, mothers should not resort to treatment with drugs, which are usually used in the treatment of alopecia. Medicines easily penetrate into breast milk and go to the baby.
Puerperal hair loss is not a disease, and therefore does not require special medical treatment. Cases of true total alopecia (alopecia) after childbirth are very rare.
Fortunately, the problem is quite easily solved without hormonal agents, anti-inflammatory drugs, immunomodulators, which are used in trichology. You can do simple rituals, choose the right makeup for your hair, and positive progress will already be noticeable.
Every day, while watching TV or before bedtime, take 10 minutes to massage the scalp with your fingers - this helps to improve blood circulation in the skin and cause blood flow to the hair follicles.
Buy a hypoallergenic shampoo and hair balm based on your hair type (oily or dry, combined or brittle, etc.). Pay attention to the composition. The more preservatives and flavorings in the selected tool will be, the worse. And because it makes sense to use the funds from the line of medical cosmetics, which is sold in pharmacies.
It will also benefit from taking vitamins and iron preparations (95% of lactating women have anemia after childbirth), but both should be chosen after consulting a doctor. Ask the therapist with this question or ask which vitamin preparations will not harm the baby if the nursing mother takes them to the pediatrician.
Choosing vitamins
It is not necessary to choose vitamin complexes in tablets or capsules. You can use vitamin preparations topically, that is, on the hair. For nursing mothers, this treatment is considered the safest. So, what vitamins do our hair need after pregnancy and childbirth:
- vitamin b 5;
- vitamin E;
- vitamins B 2 and B 3;
- vitamin A.
Panthenol (B5) can be purchased in ampoules in the form of an oil solution, as well as vitamins A and E. Vitamins B2 and B3 can be delivered to your body with food: they are found in chicken liver, eggs, buckwheat, cauliflower and walnuts.
Calcium deficiency will help eliminate milk, dairy products, cottage cheese, fresh greens.
Oil solutions can be mixed and applied to wet scalp after washing. Do not forget to rub the vitamin mask into the skin with light massaging movements. They do not need to be flushed.
Multivitamins can be drunk only with the consent of the doctor.
Preparations are usually helpful to restore vitamin deficiency after childbirth and during hepatitis B "Elevit", "Vitrum Prenatal", "Mother Complivit", "Mother's Health Alphabet", "Pregnavit".
Safe methods from traditional medicine
Hair loss during breastfeeding is not only a problem for modern women. Ladies have been faced with this at all times, and when the belt to the waist was considered the main sign of female beauty, hair loss turned into a huge problem. But because for centuries women have invented, tested and passed on to other generations. recipes of traditional medicine that will not harm the baby and help stop hair loss.
Very well proven mask of raw chicken eggs.They can be used for shampooing. Also widely used for the treatment of hair has whey, which is washed and rinsed hair. It is allowed to wash the hair with a decoction of burdock rhizome.
If there is a little more free time and hair loss is very disturbing, it is worth trying to make a treatment mask on the hair.
Rye mask
Take rye bread, brew it with boiling water, let it brew, grind into a homogeneous mass and rub into the scalp. You can add a bit of nettle broth to the mask.
Do not forget that the mask is applied warm, after which the head is wrapped with film and a towel and kept for about 15 minutes.
Rinse your hair and allow it to dry naturally, without forced drying.
Oil mask
Take a little olive oil and heat to a warm state, add a few drops of lavender, lemon and sage essential oil (all ingredients are sold in a pharmacy).
Apply warm oil mixture to clean scalp after washing. Rub and soak about half an hour. After that, the hair should be washed again.
Onion
Raw onion gruel is an old and very effective remedy for baldness. With moderate hair loss, the effect is very fast and impressive.
Grate raw onions or grate through a meat grinder. Mix with a raw egg and apply on the scalp. Onions cause local irritation, which leads to blood flow to the hair follicles. Hair loss slows down, new hair grows faster.
It is important to remember that masks do not do every day. It is enough to carry out such procedures 1-2 times a week. If you have a high tendency to allergies, you should first consult with your doctor.
Recipes based on essential oils, honey in this case can harm. But you can find an alternative - rye bread, yeast, egg is quite suitable for home treatment of hair.
Care features
After giving birth, it is important for a woman to fundamentally change the approach to her hair. Even if the lady used to be painted once a month and did a perm, when breastfeeding such procedures are contraindicated because they require the use of chemicals that easily penetrate through natural barriers into breast milk. In addition, the condition of the hair on the background of hormonal changes is such that coloring and chemistry will only harm them.
To stop the process of hair loss will help the right care. Here are its basic principles.
- Do not curl hair curling, do not dry them after washing with a hairdryer. Thermal exposure significantly impairs the quality of the hair shaft, and with weakened follicles, it generally leads to massive loss of hair. Dry naturally - dry themselves.
- Do not brush your hair wet. Wait until the hair dries. If you need curls for a solemn occasion, wind the usual curlers.
- Do not use mousses, hair sprays, styling foams. Any chemicals during this period adversely affect the elasticity of the hair shaft.
- You should not comb your hair with metal combs, no matter how beloved and good they are. Choose only wooden combs with large gaps between the teeth. It is important to comb the hair longer than usual, because it stimulates the blood flow to the hair follicles and improves the condition of the hair, they gradually stop falling out.
- No need to wash your hair every day: the natural lipid layer on the hair is very important for the health of the hair. Frequent washing disrupts the processes of lipid metabolism, so the hair becomes weak and brittle, or dry and brittle, or starts to get greasy until seborrhea occurs. It is enough to wash your hair 1-2 times a week.
- Carefully choose a shampoo. The product should not be sulfates. Apply shampoo with the ends of the hair up and about three minutes to massage the scalp before washing off the composition from the hair.
- Do not do tight tails, bunches, braids and other hairstyles, in which the hair is experiencing extreme tension. Maybe these hairstyles and look beautiful, but the blood circulation of the scalp, they exactly violate that with physiological loss (and postpartum loss is physiological) can aggravate destructive processes.
Separately, I want to say about the effect of stress on the condition of the hair. We routinely underestimate our tiredness, anger, melancholy, depressive thoughts. And under stress, a woman produces more adrenaline and cortisone, in connection with which not only the nutritional value of milk for the baby worsens, but also mommy itself under the influence of stress hormones hair follicles contract and contract. The blood gets worse to them, and therefore without proper nutrition, the bulbs weaken, the hair falls out.
There are cases of baldness on nerves, and any trichologist will confirm that this is true. And because it is important to try to get rid of stress. To do this, take time “for yourself” - read, sleep, walk, do something pleasant just for you.
Physical activity helps to get rid of stress hormones - gymnastics, cycling, swimming, homework.
Line up your diet. It should be a maximum of useful and diverse. Avoid fatty, spicy, salty, spices, carbonated drinks, alcohol. For healthy hair are useful:
- oatmeal, buckwheat, millet porridge;
- pumpkin, nuts, dried fruits;
- dairy products;
- fish, meat;
- vegetable oils (especially linseed and olive).
Taking care of your hair, do not forget about the basic requirements for the diet of a nursing mother, because the food must fully comply with them, because the child should get everything that he needs with his mother’s milk for harmonious growth and development.
For more information on hair loss and treatments, see the following video.