99% of women experience excessive hair loss, which begins 3-6 months after delivery. Most people start to panic and look for "recipes" from this misfortune: someone runs to a store or pharmacy, someone joins the ranks of "home" recipe lovers - there are onions, peppers, mustard, salt, and god knows what other masks.
Despite the fact that the network is full of articles written by trichologists (doctors - specialists in hair health), and they consistently assert in one voice that postpartum prolapse is a normal phenomenon (with which you do not need to do anything), most still prefer to "not sit idly by until all the hair fell out.
The Internet is full of tips, reading which I begin to doubt that I live in the 21st century - washing the head with bread, yolks, rinsing with herbs, scrubbing with salt...
The situation is no better with the "industrial" recipes - the mass of means, from kopecks to fabulously expensive, promise literally in a couple of days, "to reduce the fallout by 97%, make hair thicker by 68%, etc.
Hormones have a great influence on the change of growth phases and their duration.
Lyrical retreat about hormones and hair
Hormones - biologically active substances of organic nature, produced in specialized cells of internal secretion glands, coming into the bloodstream and having a regulatory impact on metabolism and physiological functions.
Hair follicles on the human body are highly sensitive to "male" and "female" sex hormones, which affect the condition of hair, suppressing or enhancing their growth.
This is because human hair follicles have specific receptors to the action of androgens ("male" sex hormones, in particular, to dihydrotestosterone, which is formed from testosterone under the influence of the enzyme 5α-reductase present in the sebaceous glands and hair follicles) and estrogen ("female" sex hormone).
The activity of follicles in the chin, chest, arms, and legs is stimulated by androgens and suppressed by estrogens.
The activity of follicles located on the head is stimulated by estrogens and suppressed by androgens.
At the same time, both women and men have both "male" (androgens) and "female" (estrogen, progesterone) sex hormones in their bodies, although their ratio differs significantly.
What happens during pregnancy?
In a pregnant woman's body, the amount of progesterone hormone produced by the placenta is much higher than in a nonpregnant woman's body. The amount of progesterone produced by the placenta progressively increases from I to III trimester of pregnancy.
Progesterone has the ability to block the conversion of testosterone into a more active form - dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which negatively affects the follicles of the scalp. Progesterone also reduces the sensitivity of androgenic tissue receptors and, therefore, reduces the impact of androgens on them.
Due to the action of estrogen produced by the placenta in increased amounts, stimulates hair growth and lengthens the growth phase.
Ultimately, as a result of the combined effect on the follicles of elevated estrogen and progesterone levels, most of the hair during pregnancy is in the growth phase, even those hair that should have already fallen out (move to the telogenic stage) continue to grow.
After childbirth, the hormonal background changes dramatically: the concentration of estrogen and progesterone decreases rapidly, and the prolactin hormone, which provides lactation, starts to be actively secreted.
As a consequence, the hair that should have fallen out in 9 months of pregnancy, but did not fall out because of "artificially" created for them favorable conditions for further growth, begin to fall out.
They can fall out in high numbers for a long time and quite actively - up to the effects of the "glowing head" and obvious abscesses.
A few numbers
Normal telogen hair is about 10%. The term of this phase is 2-4 months. The number of hair falling out per day depends on the initial amount of hair on your head (from 70 to 150 thousand). Let's take for calculation the average variant - 110 000 hairs and theologians' length of 3 months. Then you should have about 120 hairs a day. The number of hairs that do not fall out during pregnancy is about 31,200 (95% * 120 * 9 months).
Suppose that the period of increased loss is 3 months. Then to your usual figure of loss will be added "undeveloped" telogen = 120+340 (31200/3 months). Total 460 hairs per day.
Besides, hair falls out, as a rule (those that are already in a telogenic stage), at the directed on them mechanical influence, i.e. if you wash ahead once in 3 days, it is logical that the basic part of the falling out hair you will see for it washing - then them will be about 1500.
To be continued