Pregnancy hair loss affects up to 50 percent of pregnant people, per the American Pregnancy Association, and not even the biggest stars are immune. That includes the queen herself, Rihanna, who opened up to Refinery29 recently about her experience with postpartum hair loss.
“Oh my gosh, that was not on the pamphlet,” the pop icon said while walking the red carpet at her Fenty Hair launch party on June 10. Rihanna is mom to two sons, Rza, 2, and Riot, 10 months, with her partner A$AP Rocky.
Not only was Rihanna surprised by postpartum hair loss in general, she also “did not expect it to happen in waves,” she said. “I thought it would just happen and grow back.” Instead, she explained, she experienced the hair loss in different spots at different times, making it all the more frustrating and hard to manage.
“At that point you’re just like alright, enough is enough,” she said.
She’s not the only one to feel that way. Postpartum and pregnancy-related hair loss are common and unfortunately, as experts previously told SheKnows, impossible to prevent. One reason it happens? Your hair naturally thickens during pregnancy, and your body just can’t maintain that volume once you’re no longer pregnant, leading to some natural shedding.
It also happens due to telogen effluvium, aka the hair loss you experience after going through stress. “Changes like delivery, breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, and hormones place stress on the body,” Dr. Lindsey Bordone, assistant professor of dermatology at Columbia University Medical Center and hair loss specialist at ColumbiaDoctors, previously told SheKnows. “In response, the body works to conserve energy and resources from areas of low priority, such as hair growth, in favor of supporting other more critical changes taking place.”
The good news? For most people, postpartum hair loss and shedding should only happen for two to three months before the hair gradually starts to grow back to your pre-pregnancy thickness. It’s also a good idea to eat as nutritiously as possible (think: fruit, veggies, and protein), be gentle on your hair when washing and brushing, and try to minimize stress (tough for new parents, we know). But even with those options for treatment, it’s not fun when all that hair loss is happening, as Rihanna (and many of us) can attest to.
In true Rihanna fashion, though, the “Umbrella” singer took her hair loss as a beauty challenge, saying she “learned to embrace” the situation. In fact, she said, “[it] actually just made me get a little more creative and clever with my hairstyles.” For the Fenty Hair launch, for example, Rihanna rocked her short, natural curls in a gorgeous honey blonde shade and looked incredible doing it.
It’s a reminder that all of us — celebrities included! — go through cycles with our bodies, whether it’s pregnancy-related hair loss, wrinkles coming in at a certain age, or fluctuations in weight. Here’s to following Rihanna’s lead and embracing those changes instead of stressing over them.
Before you go, shop our favorite shampoos for menopause-related hair thinning:
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