Hairy Situation

For months, I blogged about the symptoms and side effects of pregnancy, but anyone who has given birth before knows that the changes to the maternal body continue long after baby has left the building.

One of my favorite hormonal indulgences of pregnancy was the full head of luscious locks. Since I was a little girl, I've had a fine, stringy mop of blonde hair. Pregnancy, however, brought with a sense of fullness not only to my figure, but also to my mane.

You can imagine my annoyance, then, when I found myself with fistfuls of my own hair wrapped around my fingers every time I took a shower. Slowly but surely, that extra fullness was disappearing.

Here's how it works: At any given time, approximately 90% of your hair is in a growing phase while the remaining 10% enters a resting phase before eventually falling out. During pregnancy, hormone levels cause a greater percentage of hairs to enter the resting phase without falling out. When hormone levels return to normal post-partum, those rested hairs bid adieu to the scalp, causing what appears to be excessive shedding.

So really, it's just those damn hormones messing with me some more. You would think Mother Nature would be a bit kinder to someone who shoved a bowling ball through their birth canal. But no.

Shampooing has become a tedious exercise since I'm trying not to go bald. Mousse has become a must. It doesn't help that Evelyn enjoys pulling at chunks of my hair when she can get her chubby fingers on it.

If you're anything like me and find yourself plagued by lost hairs that cling to your clothes, drain and baby, here are my tips:

• Common sense: Be gentle with your hair. Wash and rinse gingerly without getting your fingers all caught up in it. When it's time to brush, don't use a fine tooth comb unless you want to pick the hairs out of it later.


• DO NOT sleep with your hair in a ponytail. At night, let your poor follicles rest without elastic tugging at them.


• Keep taking your prenatal vitamins.


• Buy some mousse to add fullness and body.


• Get a trim. I cut off about eight inches of my hair when Evie was about six weeks old so my hair wouldn't look stringy.

At the end of the day, there's not much you can do about those crazy hormones except be grateful that they helped you create a sweet little baby. I'm just praying that Evelyn and I won't be sporting matching hairstyles of nothing more than peach fuzz any time soon.