I am losing my hair.
That is the one postpartum symptom that people failed to tell me about. Once Alice hit the 3-month mark, I noticed strands of my hair on her. Every time I picked her up, there was some hair on her chest. I suspect that it had fallen off of my shirt or Alice could have pulled some strands when she grabs my hair. She is just learning to grab things.
This wasn’t the only time when I’ve noticed when I was losing my hair. It is evident pretty much every time I washed and brushed my hair. If you don’t believe me, you can look at my shower drain. I’m scared to even look at my bathroom floor. I’ve lost so much hair, we could probably put it together to make a wig or make “The Addams Family’s” Cousin Itt.
Why did people fail to tell me this? Maybe they didn’t because it’s enough to scare anyone not to have a baby. That and the fact of how a baby comes out of the body is enough to terrify anyone.
So I did some research on why I am losing my hair. I mean I’ve only heard of people losing their hair because of cancer treatments. Yes, the Google research did freak me out because cancer did come up and iron deficiency. I figured iron deficiency must be out because I still take a prenatal vitamin. That’s something my doctor recommended I still do when I’m breastfeeding. Yes, I am still breastfeeding.
Yes, the girl who didn’t think she would make it past the first month has made it almost 14 weeks of breastfeeding. I feel like I should get a big medallion for this. The things mothers do for our children.
Back to the hair. Based on my research, I discovered that the increased estrogen levels when you are pregnant literally prolongs the growing stage, which causes less hair to fall out. However after a woman gives birth, her estrogen levels decrease dramatically, which means all that hair that was supposed to fall out during the pregnancy are getting ready to leave the head post pregnancy. My heart sank a little when they told me most women don’t notice a difference in hair loss until almost a year post-partum.
Are you kidding me?
I have to deal with my hair brush looking like a big hairy caterpillar for another 9 months! Thank god my husband bought me a new vacuum cleaner. I mean our carpets might be looking brown if we didn’t get a vacuum that actually works. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but it feels that way sometimes.
After a couple of weeks, it already seems my hair isn’t as thick as it was when I was pregnant. Oh how I wish I could always keep pregnancy hair. I don’t think my hair never looked so good, then Alice came out and it now looks like something out of a male ’80s Glam Rock video. This hair loss thing must be some kind of a cruel joke. Plus, I read that you have to really watch out for it tightly wrapping around one of Alice’s toes or fingers.
Once again, “Are you kidding me?” One more thing I have to worry about. As if new moms don’t have enough on our plates.
Oh well, I guess all I can do is complain for the next 9 months with my bottle mousse or hair thickener. Maybe I can do a little prayer to the hair gods.
[“source-ndtv”]
