💇🏽‍♀️ Why we get Hair Loss POSTPARTUM - EXPLAINED by a GP and NEW MUM Red Flags & What Works!

Postpartum hairloss is hard! #skindoctor #dermatology #hairloss I lost 20% of my hair after having my baby — and even as a GP who studied dermatology, I still found it really distressing. In this video I break down everything you actually need to know about postpartum hair loss: why it happens, what's normal, what's a red flag, and what the science actually says about treatments. Spoiler: most of the products being marketed at new mums have very little evidence behind them. I'm Dr Sapna, a GP who studied dermatology and a new mum, that makes me the perfect person to talk about this. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Introduction 0:43 My postpartum hair loss journey 1:40 The science: why it happens 2:11 What's normal: the timeline 4:25 My before & after photos 5:41 When hair loss is abnormal: red flags 7:35 Iron deficiency & the ferritin test your GP might miss 11:32 Blood tests to ask your GP for 11:38 Treatments ranked by evidence 12:23 Minoxidil: what you need to know 13:17 Scalp massage: is there evidence? 14:45 Tier 3: weak or no evidence 14:49 The truth about collagen supplements 15:29 The mental health side of postpartum hair loss 17:01 Your 3-step action plan 17:30 See you next time ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🩸 BLOOD TESTS TO ASK YOUR GP FOR ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✔ TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) ✔ Free T4 ✔ Full blood count (FBC) ✔ Serum ferritin — separate from FBC, this is your iron stores ✔ B12 and folate ✔ Zinc (if your diet has been restricted) Screenshot this and take it to your next GP appointment 📋 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔬 TREATMENTS RANKED IN THIS VIDEO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ Tier 1 — Evidence supported → Iron supplementation (if deficient) → Treating underlying thyroid disease → Adequate protein intake ⚠️ Tier 2 — Plausible, limited evidence → Minoxidil (with caveats — not if breastfeeding) → Scalp massage → LED / low-level light therapy ❌ Tier 3 — Weak or no evidence → Biotin (unless deficient — and it can cause acne & affect lab results) → Collagen supplements → Hair gummies → Caffeine shampoos ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 REFERENCES & FURTHER READING ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. Grover C, Khurana A. Telogen effluvium. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol. 2013. PMID: 23974577 2. Malkud S. Telogen Effluvium: A Review. J Clin Diagn Res. 2015. PMID: 26500992 3. Trüeb RM. Systematic approach to hair loss in women. J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2010. PMID: 20105246 4. Headington JT. Telogen effluvium: new concepts and review. Arch Dermatol. 1993. PMID: 8447677 5. Shrivastava SB. Diffuse hair loss in an adult female. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol. 2009. PMID: 19172026 6. Stagnaro-Green A. Postpartum thyroiditis. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2004. PMID: 15157842 7. Nicholson WK et al. Prevalence of postpartum thyroid dysfunction [meta-analysis, n=8,081]. Thyroid. 2006. PMID: 16839259 8. Trost LB et al. Iron deficiency and hair loss. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2006. PMID: 16635664 9. Almohanna HM et al. Vitamins and Minerals in Hair Loss. Dermatol Ther. 2019. PMID: 30547302 10. van Zuuren EJ et al. Interventions for female pattern hair loss [Cochrane review]. 2016. PMID: 27225981 11. Koyama T et al. Standardized Scalp Massage & Hair Thickness. Eplasty. 2016. PMID: 26904154 12. Patel DP et al. Biotin for Hair Loss: A Review. Skin Appendage Disord. 2017. PMID: 28879195 13. Williamson D et al. Effect of hair loss on quality of life. J Eur Acad Dermatol. 2001. PMID: 11495520 14. Lanzafame RJ et al. Hair growth with red light laser & LED. Lasers Surg Med. 2013. PMID: 24078483 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This video is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your own GP or healthcare professional regarding your individual circumstances. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱 FIND ME HERE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Instagram: @DrSapnaSkin TikTok: @DrSapnaSkin 💬 Have you experienced postpartum hair loss? Drop your experience in the comments — I read every single one. 🔔 Subscribe for evidence-based skincare and skin health content from a GP who actually knows the science. #postpartumhairloss #hairlossafterbaby #postpartum #newmum #telogeneffluvium #postpartumrecovery #gpadvice #evidencebasedmedicine #hairloss #dermatology #postpartumhealth #hairlosstreatment #postpartumthyroiditis #ferritin #irondeficiency #biotin #hairgrowth #mumlife #drsapnaskin #skindoctor