Postpartum Hair
Dear Future Parents (And I address this to future parents because current parents know this and/or already have their own way of doing things and don’t have the time to read things on the internet. And I address this to you because you probably need to hear more truth about parenting because what you don’t know CAN, in fact, hurt you. This goes for you too, non-gestational parents, because at some point, your postpartum partner, a person you used to have warm and sexy feelings for, is going to be holding your child whose lifetime can still be counted in hours and screaming at you, “WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE? DO SOMETHING!” And by God you’d better have some idea of what to do. So…)
Dear Future Parents,
When I met the director of The Birth Center where I received all of my maternity care during a routine prenatal visit, I felt safe and comforted by her. She was decades older than most of the other midwives in the practice (although she isn’t really old) and so she seemed much more wise and knowledgeable about the world of becoming a parent. I had expressed surprise over some bodily change or another and she mentioned that the texture of my hair may also change. I wondered if she told this to all of the expectant mothers, or if it was just for my benefit, as she and I had similarly textured and styled hair. I like to think that my short curly ‘do was a bit more stylish and edgy than hers, but in reality, they were most likely identical except that she probably went to a salon and I cut my hair at home (cheap). I had already heard from a new mom that you lose tons of hair when your baby is a few months old. She had told me that your hair and nails grow really fast during pregnancy and your hair does not fall out, so once all of the pregnancy hormones are gone from your system your hair falls out en masse. I thought that that factoid was weird and terrifying, which is how I felt about most of the pregnancy.
So now I was armed with two weird pregnancy stories about hair.
Fast forward a few months. I’m taking a bath. I know that a lot of new parents talk about how you never get to shower when you have a newborn, and this might be true for you. However, I am lucky enough to have a very involved partner who is more than happy to actually do his portion of the parenting. Because baby relies on me for all of his food, at the moment, I frequently leave a lot of the rest of parenting up to my husband. And so, I take a bath every night. I have to get clean somehow, and since it is an easy way to have some alone time, why would I do it standing up in a shower instead of lying down in a hot bath. I highly recommend allowing yourself time to take a bath every day (even if the baby is a screamer because really either 1) they’re going to be screaming in your arms or 2) they need to become comfortable with another person, especially their other parent, at some point, so just let it happen now and take care of yourself before you go crazy). So, I’m taking a bath and I decide that it is high time to wash my hair. I haven’t washed my hair in days, partly because of how many baths I’m taking instead of showers. This did not used to be a problem. I could wash my hair every few days and really only wash it then because it had started to look crazy, not because it felt or smelled greasy or dirty. This is the benefit of short curly hair. In fact, I hadn’t “shampooed” my hair in nearly two years. In addition to cutting it myself, I took another cost-saving measure in trying to wash my hair without the drying detergents in traditional shampoo (which led to the need for conditioner and leave-in conditioner to re-hydrate my curls). I had been on a regimen of washing my hair with apple cider vinegar, with an occasional baking soda scrub. (If you’re curious, I’ll be happy to tell you more, but it’s really beside the point.) However, being postpartum and losing track of days, I had begun to notice that my hair frequently felt dirty in a way that I was not familiar with. My fingernails would be dirty and I couldn’t figure out why until I realized that it was from scratching my head. That’s when I had my first big “a-ha” moment! The oil production of my hair had changed after my pregnancy. My hair wasn’t dirty from going multiple days between washings. It was just dirty. From being dirty hair. I started experimenting with new shampoo, landing on the same gentle Burt’s Bees shampoo and body wash I use on my baby’s soft feathery hair. With a vinegar rinse.
And yet, I had another “a-ha” moment coming. I’m taking a bath and I decide to wash my hair. I decided to do something I haven’t done in 20 years and wash my hair in the bathtub, swishing my hair side to side in the water. I scrub. And then I see it. Hairs floating at the surface of the water. I fish out a handful. These are the same weird hairs I’ve been finding clinging to my baby’s tiny fist, his burp cloth, his pajamas. These dark straight hairs are mine! My hair has changed texture. Of course, it is still curly. But it is not as curly as it used to be and only now am I able to realize that all of those days that I thought I was having a bad hair day were actually times that I neglected to realize what my hair actually looks like now.
Shocked and horrified, I kept fishing hairs from the water and draping them on the edge of the tub. This is something that I never could have imagined a year ago. Just like I couldn’t have imagined spending whole days feeling unproductive because, although I want to clean the entire house, only one tiny area can be tidied before my baby wants to eat again. Just like I couldn’t have imagined spending part of my time in the bath hand expressing milk into a tiny bottle because I hated using the breastpump so much that I’d rather milk myself like a barn animal (in order to build a stash of frozen milk to be used when I go back to work in two weeks). Just like I couldn’t imagine that my husband would be the kind of parent who would gladly sit and hold the baby for as long as I need him to so that I can disappear to take a bath and then write about it (all after he cooked dinner for me). And yet, all of these things are true and happening, including examining strand after strand of my new hair, not on my head, but as I grab them out of murky bath water. I have seen a change in almost every aspect of my life, and although I had a warning from the oldest and wisest of the midwives, I am truly shocked by this one.
Sincerely,
Parent of a ten week old
