28 August 2026 · Maia Hillsborrow
Marketing Director · Mother of five
Postpartum Hair Loss: Why It Happens and When It Stops
It comes out in the shower first, in a quantity that makes you stop and look at your hand. Then it's on the pillow, in the brush, wound around the baby's fingers, and across the bathroom floor in an amount that seems impossible from one head.
I've been through this five times and it startled me on the fifth as much as the first, which is the part nobody prepares you for.
What's happening to the hair
Hair grows in cycles, and at any moment most of the hair on your head is growing while a small proportion rests, ready to shed. The high estrogen of pregnancy holds far more of it in the growing phase, so you shed less through the second and third trimesters and the hair thickens. That's the pregnancy hair people compliment you on. It was never extra growth. It was a pause in the shedding.
When the hormones drop after birth, all of that held-back hair moves into the resting phase at once and comes out together over a few weeks. The clinical name is telogen effluvium, and the shape of it is the important part: a delayed release of hair you were always going to lose, compressed into a short window. The growth itself never stopped.
The timing, which is more predictable than you'd expect
| When | What you notice |
|---|---|
| Birth to 6 weeks | Usually nothing. Hair still feels thick. |
| 6 to 12 weeks | Shedding starts, often suddenly. |
| 3 to 4 months | The peak, and the point most people panic. |
| 4 to 6 months | Still shedding, but less each week. |
| 6 to 12 months | Settling. Short regrowth at the hairline. |
Most women are back to their own normal somewhere around the first birthday. The regrowth arrives as fine short pieces around the forehead and temples, which stand up and refuse to lie flat for months. It's a small indignity, and a reliable sign that the cycle has turned.
What it isn't
It isn't a nutritional deficiency in most cases, and this is where a lot of money changes hands for nothing. Supplements marketed for postpartum hair are sold against a fear, not a diagnosis. Taking biotin when you aren't short of it does nothing for your hair, and it carries a second problem. Biotin interferes with several common blood tests, including thyroid panels and some cardiac markers, so a supplement taken to fix hair loss can distort the test that would have explained it.
It isn't caused by breastfeeding, and stopping won't shorten it. It also isn't caused by washing your hair, which was the advice I got most often and which is backwards. Hair that has already released comes out when it's disturbed, so washing less only means more arrives at once.
When to have it looked at
As a physiotherapist I'm outside my own qualification here, so this section is the boundary of what I'll say. The rest belongs with a doctor.
- Shedding that hasn't slowed at all by around a year
- Bald patches with a defined edge, not an even thinning
- Scalp that's painful, scaly or inflamed
- Shedding alongside exhaustion beyond ordinary new-parent tiredness, feeling cold, or a racing heart, which are worth a thyroid check
- Heavy bleeding at the birth or since, which makes iron worth measuring
Thyroid disturbance after birth deserves naming, since it affects around one woman in twenty in the first year and is straightforward to test for. Iron is the other one to measure instead of guessing at, because taking iron you don't need isn't harmless.
Elsewhere on your own health
What helps in the meantime
Nothing shortens the cycle, so everything below is about getting through it without making it worse. Be gentle with what's still attached: a wide-tooth comb, no tight ponytails or buns, and no heat if you can avoid it. Traction from a tight style pulls on a hairline that's already thin, and that kind of loss can become permanent in a way the shedding itself won't.
Eat properly, which after a birth is easier said than done. A cut that suits shorter regrowth is more effective than any product I've tried, and I say that having tried a fair number of them. I'm not sure the rosemary oil did anything for me either way, though it smelled nice and it was ten minutes to myself.
Katherine was six months old when I stopped counting what came out in the shower, and by her first birthday there was a halo of new hair standing straight off my forehead in every photograph from that year.
What the research says
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.