Hair Loss and Childbirth

Many women also suffer the "human moult" hair loss which can follow childbirth. Others can suffer the hair loss caused by the stress of combining high-powered careers with having children. Due to career and educational pressures, more women postpone having a first baby until their late thirties or early forties. They then have a far greater chance that their hair will thin as a result. Hair salons report an increase in older clients with thinning hair following late babies. "The hair is the most vulnerable point of the body and, when there is stress, the first thing to go", says Alexa Goodman, who runs hair and beauty salons in the West Midlands.

This increase in thinning hair comes at a time when there are already more cases of alopecia areata, the mystery scalp disease which begins as a tiny bald patch and which can become total baldness: a fast-acting and frightening disease.