Each morning a woman will find a few hairs on her pillow, and that’s completely natural. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, this is called hair shedding and, on average, a person will ‘shed’ anywhere from 50 to 100 hairs in a day. However, when the numbers become much higher than that and you actually notice that your hair is thinning in volume or even have patches with no hair, that is cause for concern.
When not to worry excessively
According to the same article, excessive shedding can occur as an aftermath of numerous situations ranging from giving birth, undergoing surgery, during illness recovery, loss of 20 or more pounds or after you’ve stopped taking birth control pills (if you were on them). The shedding in those cases can be a little higher in volume, but there is no need to be overly concerned as the body usually takes care of things and in about six to nine months, your volume goes back to its normal state.
Cause number one
As Women’s Health Concern points out, women can experience major hair loss and even a lack of growth of new hairs during menopause. In some cases, women lose hair evenly, in the sense that the overall volume is not as high as before menopause, while in the worst case scenario they notice bald patches, particularly “at the crown of the head, the sides or more general hair thinning all over the head”. The worrying element is that this is simply something that comes with age, and even though estrogen, which dips during menopause, is there to help hair growth, baldness and major hair loss can still occur. The good news is that there are options for stopping or at least slowing down the hair loss process such as a change in diet, usage of strengthening hair products – specialized shampoos, as well as undergoing procedures such as a safe hair rejuvenation. Age is definitely a factor, and so is a potential hormonal imbalance that occurs in the pre and menopausal stage, but if you can’t stop hair loss altogether, you can at least take steps to keep it at bay for an extended period of time.
