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Most women have thicker, more lustrous hair during their pregnancy. This is related both to pregnancy hormones and to a change in your hair's growth patterns:

• When you're not pregnant your hair will grow for a certain amount of time -- about a half inch per month for anywhere from 2-6 years -- and then "rest" (the technical term for this is the "telogen phase").


• During the telogen phase the bulb on the end of the root gets smaller and eventually (after two or three months of resting) the hair falls out.

When you're pregnant, however, your hair stays in the resting...

Most women have thicker, more lustrous hair during their pregnancy. This is related both to pregnancy hormones and to a change in your hair's growth patterns:

• When you're not pregnant your hair will grow for a certain amount of time -- about a half inch per month for anywhere from 2-6 years -- and then "rest" (the technical term for this is the "telogen phase").


• During the telogen phase the bulb on the end of the root gets smaller and eventually (after two or three months of resting) the hair falls out.

When you're pregnant, however, your hair stays in the resting phase longer and less of it falls out, leading to that thick, gorgeous hair that you will sorely miss once the baby's born.

The shiny hair on your head is the good news. The bad news is that you may also find yourself with unwanted hair on other parts of your body -- from your nipples to your upper lip. This hair, caused by increased cortisone and other pregnancy hormones in your body, will probably go away by itself in the months after the baby is born.

If you're one of those unlucky women who finds that her hair actually falls out (and thinks she has fallen prey to a rare disease and not a stork visit), you can take comfort in the fact most likely your normal hair will return after the baby's born.

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BuckeyeChristy
August 04, 2008

Straight to Wavy

Before I got pregnant for the first time, my hair was straight. Really, really straight. When I was a teen I tried to get perms and they usually fell out within a month because my hair was so resistant to change....  read more

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