Hair Loss and Baldness for Females

Although less females suffer from hair loss compared to males counterparts there are still a large number of females that suffer from this condition and want to find solutions to it. The problem is that females generally feel much worst than males if they start loosing hair as they have a harder time accepting the consequences of hair loss and eventual baldness.

Hair loss that happens in females can normally be classified as “female pattern baldness” and it defers greatly from “make pattern baldness”. Female pattern baldness is characterized by a thinning of the hair starting from the mid-line and sometimes from the forehead-line up. This is commonly referred to as the “widow’s peel”. Women rarely have hair loss that eventually leads to baldness, rather the hair is just thinned to a point where the shape of your bare head is visible under certain lighting conditions.

Unlike male pattern baldness which can be caused by a myriad of factors including hereditary causes, natural female pattern baldness is almost always caused by hereditary reasons. Most of it is due to an interruption of the hormone endocrine. This interruption can be caused by child-birth, menopause or even the consumption of certain birth control pills. Hair loss in females are also characterized by a inherited sensitivity to androgen in the follicles of the hair scalp.

Some women also experience hair loss due to what they do to their hair in the name of beauty. The most obvious form of hair loss through manually damaging you hair and scalp is what is commonly referred to as “friction stressing” where the hair is pulled back to such a point (often repeatedly over weeks or months) that the hair and its associated roots and follicles are weakened causing the hair to break off and re-grow in unnaturally high instances. This causes the hair to be weak and get finer to the point that the hair doesn’t even grow anymore or is so fine it is hardly visible. This problem often occurs with people who like to tie up their hair in ponytails or corn-rolls which are too tight and put unnecessary tension on their hair.

As mentioned earlier the majority of hair loss in women is associated with inherited predispositions and sensitivities to certain hormones which may play havoc with our hair follicles which we really can’t do much about. Sometimes there are actually diseases that we don’t even think about that can firstly cause the change in hormones and even be directly associated with the hair loss.

The problem with hair loss with women is that diagnosing the cause of the hair loss is much harder compared with men. To this point, self-diagnosis is often inaccurate and thus should not be considered a proper method of obtaining information about the condition. It is much better to consult a physician first who can then perform some tests on you to determine if you hormone levels are normal. 

Resources:
 - Baldness After Child Birth;
 - Baldness After Menopause.