Why does your hair get thicker when you’re pregnant? See if this question can stump Dr. Charlotte Grayson.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Why does your hair grow more when you’re pregnant?
Like many of the other strange and wonderful changes occurring in your body during pregnancy, this one is fueled by hormones.
Normally, your hair goes through cycles. It grows for about two to six years, and then it rests for a couple of months. At the end of the resting phase, the hair falls out. On average, you lose about 100 hairs a day.
But when you’re pregnant, there’s more of the female hormone estrogen in your body. This causes your hair to stay in the growing phase longer. With the same number of hairs growing in but fewer hairs falling out, your hair looks fuller.
After your baby is born and your hair starts going into the resting cycle again, all the hair that accumulated while you were pregnant will start to fall out. This makes your hair look thinner for a while.
Within about six months your hormones and your hair cycle should return to normal.
But with a new baby in the house, it’s your sleep cycle that might take a while to recover.