Of the many aesthetic indignities of the postpartum period, hair loss is one of the worst. But there's help.
Postpartum Hair Loss Is a Dispiriting Reality. Here's How I Found Help, and Hope
It started in the shower. I have thick, curly hair and am accustomed to shedding when washing or combing—100 strands a day is apparently normal. What I was not accustomed to was when, around two months after I gave birth to my son last May, seemingly thousands of hairs began leaving my head every time I shampooed. Soon it was no longer just in the shower: it was when I gently raked my hair back into a ponytail and my hand emerged with a competing ponytail of escaping strands; or when my pillowcase appeared to be covered with floating clouds of dark coils; or, God forbid, when I actually brushed it and an American Girl doll’s-worth of hair clogged the bristles. Worse still is that I began noticing patchy spots around my hairline. My scalp was newly visible and I was not pleased to see it. Was the muffin top of residual baby weight hanging over my c-section scar, and my ballooning, milk-leaking breasts not enough aesthetic trauma to suffer? Apparently not.
I quickly discovered that this indignity was not unique to me. Other moms and my dermatologists nodded knowingly when I complained, awestruck at the new state of my hair. The shockingly common condition is called Telogen effluvium, I was informed, and, according to the American Pregnancy Association, it affects 40-50% of new moms. The condition can actually afflict anyone suffering from severe sudden stress, Lars Skjøth, founder and lead researcher at the Danish hair clinic Harklinikken, tells me in his light-filled Flatiron salon. But it is particularly common among postpartum women when their estrogen levels decline and the stress hormone cortisol increases causing the hair to move from the growth, or anagen cycle, to the shedding, or telogen phase. The hair typically grows back, Skjøth assures me, clocking my panicked expression. But that regrowth can appear thinner and finer, he adds, as the hair follicle itself often shrinks—a process known as miniaturization.
Once the exclusive domain of Rogaine and male pattern baldness, the hair loss conversation has gotten a bit of a makeover in recent years, led by companies like Harklinikken, which specifically targets women’s hair loss. The opportunity for diversification has always been there: according to the American Hair Loss Association, women’s hair loss specifically accounts for nearly 40% of cases in the U.S. “When I started no one was speaking to women about this,” explains Skjøth, who launched his first clinic in Copenhagen in 1992 and who has been studying female hair loss for nearly three decades. (Harklinikken opened a US flagship in New York in 2019, and currently has a 40,000 person waitlist for its customized, botanically-derived treatments).
After Skjøth picked through my hair like a mama baboon looking for fleas, I was given my own personalized “extract” along with strict and elaborate instructions to wash my hair daily, then apply the elixir with a syringe in the evenings followed by a strenuous scalp massage. It was a significant departure from my typical grooming ritual, which entails shampooing about once a week—and from the general guidance of hairstylists who often discourage daily washing to minimize dryness. But cleansing and massaging the scalp is an essential step for allowing the follicles room to grow properly, according to Skjøth and his associates, not to mention preventing scar tissue around the follicle.
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Chloe Malle
