Baby's first haircut: is it possible to cut hair up to a year?

With children's hair, there are many signs and superstitions. And despite the fact that the yard is the 19th century, many people continue to believe that it is the hair that is the link between the child and the cosmos, the highest forces, and therefore the first haircut of the child is set aside until they reach the age of 1 year. How substantiated such claims, you will learn from this article.

Hair in children begins to grow long before their birth, during the period of intrauterine development. Depending on which genetic program the fetus has, they grow faster or slower, have a light or dark color. Therefore, newborns are so unlike each other - there are bald and owners of solid hair styles, there are blondes and brunettes. But regardless of the hair with which the child was born, one day the parents attend a reasonable question - when can the child cut their hair?

There is an opinion that it is impossible to cut a child up to the year. And this is quite noticeably worried about parents, whose babies were born with long curls. Already by 3-4 months the hair starts to stick out in all directions, the child's head sweats, the hairs interfere with it, and if it is hot in the yard, then regularly acne is formed on the head. If, moreover, a child has a bald head (normal and not related to rickets), then the child looks altogether terrifying, the baby looks like a disheveled sparrow with feathers sticking out in different directions and makes a very plaintive impression.

And parents would be happy to make the baby a short and neat haircut, but they are warned from all sides by relatives, acquaintances, friends, representatives of the older generation, counselors from the Internet: you cannot cut a baby before the year is up.

The sources of this information come from the distant past. Long since hair was allocated with mystical properties..

The first hair of the child was considered the most healing for him. It was believed that they could bring good luck into his life and cure him if the disease came. To protect the hair tied flagellum, braided in a braid and hid in a medallion, which hung the child on the neck. The mothers of Georgia, Armenia, and the first infant curls were placed in a book — they chose a thicker volume for this and kept their hair between pages, believing that this would help the child become clever.

Some of the first children's hair was burned or buried in a secret place so that evil sorcerers could not use it for their rituals and birds for building nests. If the parents wanted the child to become rich, the hair was buried in an anthill in the forest.

As for the haircut, so children were not cut during the first years. Boys were cut after 2-3 years, girls were not cut at all, so that to marry the girl had long braids.

Researchers of ethnic traditions argue that The reason for such a reverent attitude to the first children's hair was the high infant mortality due to underdeveloped medicine.. Being unable to resist bacteria, viruses and other dangers, mothers tried not to get used to the child during the first year of his life.That is why they said that the kid who came to this world only looks at him and his family, and at any time can decide to leave him - that is his right.

It was the first year that was considered critical.. To mow a child means to accept him, to make him a full-fledged member of the family, and this was done only after a year.

Gradually, statements about the dangers of cutting up to a year were overgrown with various signs. Therefore, today we can hear such explanations for this prohibition.

• If you cut the child's hair to a year, he will speak badly. It was believed that truncating hair in a mental sense shortened language and memory.

• Haircut up to a year can greatly frighten the child. This fear is able to deform the personality as a whole - the child will grow up cowardly, cowardly.

• Cutting hair up to a year can lead to the fact that a child will experience severe material difficulties all his life, he is literally tortured by need, poverty.

The ceremony was attended by a midwife, who took delivery 3 years ago (sheared it at the age of 3). Also invited the baby's godparents. The eldest man in the family or the godfather had the right to cut the first curl. First, a cross was cut off on the head - it was believed that this would help, after shearing, protect the child from the effects of dark forces and unkind people. Hair was collected and over-tied. Kept them until adulthood.

The grown-up boy was again cut off by a strand and mixed with infant hair. That is how they did charms for men going on the battlefield to the service.

If we once again recall why and for what signs were created about children's hair of peoples in ancient times, it becomes quite obvious that today, with developed medicine and low infant mortality, there is no need to observe such rituals.

Let's look at children's hair from a scientific point of view. What kind of child they will have depends on genetics, and not on when and how they cut their hair for the first time..

The first hair is very thin, with weak medulas, they are more like a down. But after the first month, when the neonatal period ends, they begin to grow at a rate of about a centimeter per month.

It is clear that you need to sensibly assess the situation - the time of year, the climate in the apartment, the habit of warm or easy to wear the child, the sensitivity of his skin. It is necessary to pay attention, if the hair does not interfere with the child, if they do not climb into the eyes.

The time of the first haircut parents determine themselves. And it will be good if they rely in this decision not on superstition and omens, but on their common sense.

As to whether it is necessary to shave a child baldly, there is no consensus. But here it is enough to say that There is not a single scientific medical argument that shaved bald women have thicker hair. Therefore, this question parents must decide for themselves. Bald babies like it - shave, do not like it - cut it yourself or carry the child to the children's hair salon where the toddler will make a model hairstyle.

Regardless of at what age the parents decided to cut the son or daughter hair, you need to properly care for the first infant curls. This will help to avoid some inconveniences and difficulties.

General rules for the care of a baby's head are as follows.

• Do not use baby soap to wash hair. Buy special infant shampoo with neutral acidity. This will help maintain a protective lipid layer on the hair shaft. Also, do not wash your hair with detergent more than once a week. The destruction of the protective layer is fraught with dry skin and seborrhea, because the work of the sebaceous glands is disturbed.

• Do not use herbal teas for hair care.. Despite numerous tips and statements that chamomile decoction or oak bark strengthens the structure of children's hair, doctors managed to establish only one connection - between decoctions and children's allergies. On the growth of hair and the density of their broths in general does not affect.

• Do not comb wet hair baby. Wait until they dry. Do not use a hairdryer for drying. Brush your child comb for children, with blunt teeth, so as not to damage and injure the scalp.

• In the presence of a tangled ball of hair (the so-called mats), do not try to unravel it, boldly take the scissors and carefully cut it off.

To cut or not cut, shave or make a haircut are issues in which even within the same family it is sometimes difficult to reach agreement. If we proceed from the principles of benefits for the child, then a haircut at any age (neither up to a year nor later), according to pediatricians and trichologists, does not harm babies. Neither worse nor better than her hair will not.

The well-known pediatrician and TV host Yevgeny Komarovsky agrees with this opinion, who claims that the problem of infant haircuts by parents and grandparents is greatly exaggerated. In fact, there is no problem - hair can and should be cut then and as many times as the parents of the baby need and how much it needs.

No doctor will tell you what to do with the hair that was cut off the baby. Medicine has not found a connection between them and what will be the state of human health, his well-being and success.

For information on when to cut a baby for the first time and how, see the next video.