Parents are confused - the child's hair is falling out. What caused this unpleasant phenomenon and what to do? With such questions, moms and dads quite often turn to doctors, including the famous pediatrician Yevgeny Komarovsky.
Dossier
Evgeny Olegovich Komarovsky - doctor of the highest category. The pediatrician became famous for his detailed and detailed explanations of the essence and methods of treatment of various childhood diseases. He is the host of the TV project "School of Doctor Komarovsky", as well as the author of numerous books written for parents and explaining in an accessible form how to raise a healthy person.
Causes
Hair loss can be observed in children of very different ages, and often it is due precisely to age characteristics. For example, in newborns, hair only looks like adults, in fact, it is weaker, poorly protected from the external environment. Therefore, their loss is considered a normal process of changing the hairline of the head, since they are replaced by stronger curls, with a stronger root and a strong structure. Most often, the first hairstyle begins to actively change after a year.
Hair color and hair thickness do not depend on nutrition and vitamins, but on the innate genetic characteristics of the child. However, the weak can be strengthened, but only after the child is 2 years old. Eventually they will acquire an "adult" structure by only 5 years.
Commentary by Dr. Komarovsky on the causes of hair loss in children.
If the hair begins to fall out in a child after 2 years, and this process is quite intense, Dr. Komarovsky strongly recommends a complete and thorough examination by a pediatrician... Perhaps the child lacks vitamins, or his nutrition is not correct. The loss can also have hormonal causes, which can only be established in laboratory conditions. Often, hair falls out as a result of damage to the scalp by fungi, parasitic diseases.
Sometimes prolapse, especially on the back of the head, is an indirect sign of rickets in a baby. But such a diagnosis is not made only for this symptom, it requires confirmation of specialists.
Stress can also be a factor in losing curls. But this is true mainly for school-age children, especially primary school students.
The most unpleasant causes of hair loss lie in an allergic reaction that injures the roots. This condition has not yet been fully studied, according to Komarovsky, and therefore it is extremely difficult to deal with such a problem.
Another unpleasant cause of hair loss is hypothyroidism, a dysfunction of the thyroid gland.
Doctor Komarovsky's advice
If hair falls out in a baby or child after a year, you should not worry. This is a physiological process closely related to hormonal changes in a growing body. In addition, Komarovsky emphasizes, the baby usually lies up to six months, and therefore the loss of curls on the back of the head is due to the usual "wiping". Evgeny Olegovich advises not to panic about this and not to record the child with patients with a terrible ailment - rickets.
A child does not need hair care products until 3 years old. It is important for parents to remember that baby shampoos should not be "aggressive", with strong perfumery fragrances and irritating. Ideally, children's products do not contain an alkaline base, and this is different from adults. Komarovsky advises against washing a child's hair with shampoos every day. Such funds should be used no more than once a week.
Keep a close eye on your child who is just starting school or kindergarten. Often, severe stress from such radical changes in the child's life leads to partial or complete baldness. However, it is temporary. And it can be prevented by providing the child with timely psychological assistance, and simply by creating an atmosphere of friendliness and support.
Many types of hair loss are accompanied by a vitamin deficiency in the body. Dr. Komarovsky points out the need to take special children's complexes, which necessarily contain vitamins A, B, C, D and E. Evgeny Olegovich emphasizes that it is in no case to give children adult vitamin complexes, their formula is not suitable for babies. And an overdose of vitamins, especially group A, can also negatively affect the condition of the hairline.
The child's diet must necessarily contain foods with sufficient amounts of calcium, magnesium, zinc and iron.
When asked whether it is necessary to cut a child's hair after a year, Komarovsky replies that this is a personal matter of the family. The hair cut will not affect the quality of the hair.
Komarovsky strongly discourages overheating the scalp of the baby, so that later there will be no serious problems with hair. Parents who are accustomed to wrapping a baby in three hats run the risk of treating their child's baldness for a long time.
And now Dr. Komarovsky will tell us about rickets and lack of vitamins as a cause of hair loss.
