Tuesday, 19 August 2008
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Shaving Baby's Head for Thicker Hair: Fact or Myth?
by Mama KoalaWhen Baby Koala was "crowning" during birth, the first thing I asked my husband was "Do you see hair?" I know, it's ridiculous, and yet, that's what came to mind at the time. My mom used to tell me stories about how little hair I had as an infant and even as a young toddler, and how people used to mistake me for a boy so she'd put on cute bonnets to make me look more like a girl. I still have fine hair, and very little of it. If I tie it all back, I don't think the pony tail diameter would even be an inch thick. In fact, the hair stylist for my wedding had to use tons of fake hair to create an up-do because I had too little hair. So naturally, when I knew I was having a girl, I had this little wish that she'd have more hair than me.
About a week oldAlthough it wasn't very thick, I was SO thrilled that my newborn had hair on her head from birth. So when some ladies recommended that I shave her head in order for her hair to grow in thicker and fuller, I couldn't get myself to do it unless I knew for sure that it would have good results. I asked around, and it didn't seem like it was a scientifically proven fact. I brushed it aside as "I'm sure it's just a coincidence, it's all about genetics."
19 months oldOver 19 months later, Baby Koala's hair is finally growing long enough to actually cover the back of her neck (somewhat hehe), but she still has very little hair, and it's also very fine and limp like mine. It's adorable as it is, but now when I look at other kids her age who had their heads shaved as an infant, it seems like they have far more hair than my daughter (however, their parents have thicker hair than Papa Koala and I do, so perhaps it is still just genetics??). So now I'm curious (I wouldn't shave Baby Koala's head now, but I might consider it if I have more children)... does it actually work?
Does shaving a baby's head ensure that s/he will have thicker hair when it grows back? Have you ever tried this, and in your opinion, was it successful?
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Comments (54)
Personally, I was bald til I was around the age of one (probably less, but it's not like I can remember), but now I have such thick hair that I can hardly do anything with it. It's thick and long and soft--totally the opposite of what I was born with, and neither of my parents have hair like mine (my dad is bald, in fact). But, of course, it probably has no correlation, but still. Just my two cents.
Okay, my son had the most beautiful loose, soft, curly hair when he was young and when he was almost two I shaved his head completely....it grew back in sooo coarse and soooo thick. In my opinion...it works. Wish I hadn't shaved it.
A lot of kid's/people's hair changes over time. Mine used to be straight and now it's curly. My mom and my husband both actually started out as blondes and are definite brunettes now. Shaving your legs doesn't make it grow in any thicker or coarser, so I don't see why shaving your head would make a difference. If it's going to change, it will change regardless of whether you shave it off or not.
I asked the pediatrician this same exact question when my bb was 1 month old and i was all gung-ho about shaving her head. BabyDaddy was totally against it and doc just looked at me like i was from Mars. Doc said its not true. My dad wanted me to do it. My mom said not to.
In the end, we didnt do it.... but we did give her a trim when she was around 6 months old now. She's 9 months old now and all i hear from BabyDaddy is that if we didnt trim her hair 3 months ago, it would be so much longer now.
I was mortified when taking my cousin and her little boy to the peditrician years ago for shots...there was this lady in the lobby with a completely bald little girl...it didn't help that she had the palest blonde eyelashes and eyebrows that you really couldn't see, but she was asking me about my second-cousin...how old he was, what he was in for...the usual...my cousin finally tuned into the conversation and asked if her little girl was going to "be okay?" I had been thinking the same thing: cancer, but (thankfully) hadn't thought of anything kind or "tactful" to say in relation to it. I can only begin to imagine the looks on our faces when the mother explained that she had purposely shaved her head so that she would have thicker hair.
when i was 1, i too, hardly had any hair. so my mom shaved my head and now i have really thick hair. my niece, when she was 1 (she barely had any hair), my mom told my sister to shave her head and now.. she has SO much hair. she's 8 now. she looked funny at the time, since she was 1 and bald, but now, she has thick wonderful hair.
ppl say it's just a myth.. but it seemed to have worked with me and my niece!!
@fantazygirl@xanga - hm I've wondered about that and I really have heard that it's a myth and blablabla. Also ingrown hairs that'd inevitably come out of shaving your head, I'd think would DECREASE the amount of growing hair on your head, if anything. I have really thin hair though, and if this is true, then I'd consider shaving it sometime in the future (when I don't plan to have a social life for at least 1 year, until it grows back to a reasonably, at least short length, of course).
I sure know when I shave my legs, it seems like 2 hairs grow back where only one was. Give it a try!
I feel like I heard this myth busted somewhere. When you think about it, why would shaving hair make it grow any differently? Hair is dead. When you cut a piece of hair it's not like cutting the branch off a tree It's like pulling off a dead leaf. Or rather, cutting off a dead leaf but leaving the part that attatches to the tree still there. Point is, the hair will keep growing from the roots; you haven't done anything to the roots so why would they produce anything different than the hair they've always been producing?
I think the shaving arms/legs hair growing thicker thing is a rumour too. It just seems thicker and darker because you're used to there being NO hair after you shave it.
p.s. I'm kind of tempted to experiment with my arm hair. I"ve never shaved it in my life. I could, say, shave a square inch of arm hair regularly and compare the growth from the shaved spot with the hair around it. Hmm...
One of my best friends is from the Phillipines and when she was born--her mom believed that if you shave the hair it would come back thicker and more fine. So her mom shaved her head completly with shaving cream and all!
When she started getting older her hair came back a LOT thicker and now it is very long and fine, but its also very good to test it on a very small patch first just to see it it might work.
Once, I was told that if you shave your LEGS, that the hair will just always grow back thicker and faster...when I looked THAT up, It just wasnt true...So Im guessing the same goes for shaving of the head. Afterall, can you imagine how men, who ALWAYS shave their hair, would look if they let it grow all back, after the 40, millionth, time shaving it?
@FallenReign@xanga - but when he had hair, what was it like
@ddearcaroline@xanga - -shrugs- I dunno. I was a little kid when he went bald. It might've been thick when he was a kid but it's hard to tell from the pictures. It was blonde, though...it's really dark now. Hm.
we shaved my son's head around 18 months... not TOO late. he used to have super fine wispy hair... after the shave it is noticeably thicker and more dense. i'm not sure how much i'd attribute to the shaving... but it must have done SOMETHING. =]
@batistalvr122@xanga - Oh wow, I didn't know there was a cultural link! My parents (both Filipino) shaved my head bald and my hair did grow back thicker.
They didn't do it with my two sisters, and their hair is nowhere as thick as mine. So in our family, shaving heads did produce thicker hair.
@RoAngie467 - To tell you the truth, although I'm not Filipino or any race in Asia...(I'm Irish and Trinidadian) I wish my mom would have done that to me; becuase I would say I have a lot of hair but I would actually like it to be a LOT thicker.
All of my friends that happen to be Filipino, etc. have very thick hair becuase of it! and I am soooo JEALOUS!!!
it worked for me. neither of my parents have thick hair, at all. i was really, really sick as a baby and got my head shaved when i was like 6 or 7 months old. my hair was SO thick as a kid i used to have to get special hair holders because they wouldn't even go around my hair 2x to hold it up. its thinner now.. after years of dying and flat ironing it.. haha but it's still incredibly thick!
I have no idea but she is ADORABLE! haha
From a scientific standpoint, I can't see it working at all. You are born with a certain number of hair follicles. The number of follicles is what determines the "thickness" of your hair. If you have fewer hair follicles your hair won't be as thick. While actual hair diameter has some to do with it as well...as well as the number of follicles that eventually fail (eg. baldness)...shaving all their hair off isn't going to change the number of follicles on their head. Hair changes over time, and new growth is different from old growth...so shaving may make it seem thicker because it's newer, more mature hair. Baby hair is naturally soft and sparse.
i wouldn't try this first- i'm too scared of the end result and second- my baby was born with a thick head of hair. however around her second month she began to lose the hair at the back of her head so it ultimately looked like someone had shaved off the sides. it grew back, it wasn't as full but the hair was stronger.
i've heard also it's a myth but it's worth a try in my opinion...
It worked for me. I didn't get my head shaved when I was baby so my hair grew very fine and straight and light brown. However, when I got Leukemia and all of my hair fell out; after I got chemo theorepy my hair grew back, very thick, curly and dark brown almost black.
@filtered_sunlight@xanga - how old was that little girl?? i think that's exactly why it's much easier to shave a boy's head than a girl's... unless of course, we're talking about an infant since it's common for infants to have very little or no hair.
My uncle and aunt decided to shave my little cousins head around 5 months because she had very little and not very pretty hair and when they shaved her head it grew back thick and curley. It looks beautiful.