Postnatal
Hair loss after miscarriage or stillbirth
This is written gently, because if you are reading it you have been through something that hair should not be the priority after, and yet here you are, two or three months on, with hair in the shower and nobody who has mentioned that this might happen. It might. It is normal. It is not the loss taking something else from you; it is the same biology that follows a birth, and it ends.
Why it happens
From the earliest weeks of pregnancy, oestrogen and progesterone rise and follicles are held in their growing phase. When a pregnancy ends — at any stage, by any route — those hormones fall, and the follicles that were being held are released into rest together. Around two to three months later they let go of their hair. The later the loss, the more hair was being held and the larger the shed; after a stillbirth the shed can be as heavy as after a live birth. After a very early loss it may be barely noticeable.
Grief adds to it. Cortisol from a prolonged, wrenching stress does the same thing to the follicle as the hormone drop, and sleep and eating often fall away in the weeks after. Surgery or significant bleeding, if there was either, adds a third trigger and can leave iron low. None of this is your fault, and none of it is permanent.
What to expect
Shedding begins two to four months after the loss, is heaviest for a month or two, and eases by six months. Regrowth appears as fine short hairs at the hairline and parting from around month five. Most women are back to their previous density within a year. If you conceive again inside that window, the new pregnancy holds the follicles and the shed pauses until after that pregnancy ends, which is why some women describe two sheds arriving together after a rainbow baby.
Not sure which one is you?
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Twelve quick questions. We tell you what we think is going on, what to do about it, and we say so if it is something we cannot help with.
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Ask for ferritin, particularly if there was bleeding or surgery. Iron lost then is often not replaced, and low ferritin is the commonest reason a post-loss shed does not settle. How to raise it.
Eat, even when you cannot be bothered. Protein especially. Someone who loves you will bring food if you say the word.
Be gentle with what you have. No tight styles, no lifting colour, no daily heat, for the months the shed is running.
Do not start any hair treatment for the shed itself. It is going to resolve; it needs time and iron, not a product.
Ask for support if the grief is not moving. The Miscarriage Association and Sands both have helplines, and a GP can refer for counselling. Untreated grief keeps cortisol high, and the hair follows the grief.
A word about being seen
Women who lose a pregnancy get fewer check-ups, less advice and less patience than women who bring one home, and the hair loss lands in that silence. You are allowed to go to a GP about it. You are allowed to say the words “I had a miscarriage in March and my hair is falling out.” It is a real symptom of a real event, and it deserves the same answer.
Ready to read your own pattern?
Take the two-minute hair quiz
Twelve questions. We tell you what we think is going on for you, and we say so if it is something a GP should see first.
Start the quiz →
