The phenomenon of hair loss after pregnancy can be disturbing to many women. It’s just not right to see clumps of hair shedding away from our heads like fur or grass. It’s already amazing that we don’t go bald from all of the hair we lose on a normal basis, but baldness definitely seems a likely possibility when hair is coming out of our scalps by the fistful. In our society, baldness for women is a lot worse than for men. It’s more socially acceptable for men to be bald, while hair is a largely defining characteristic for most women. But societal rules aside, women might feel sickened by their hair loss, feeling as if they’re degenerating from some kind of disease.

But hair loss after pregnancy is nothing to be gravely worried about and it’s okay to shed like a dog. There’s no real cure for pregnancy hair loss, but it’s not really something to cure. The only thing you can do about hair loss after pregnancy is to wait until your hormones balance out. In the meantime, you can take care of your hair as much as possible so that you don’t leave gross trails of hair in your wake. You can either try to lessen the amount of hair that falls out overall, or you can try to not shed everywhere. Brushing and washing hair makes hair fall out more, so you might do it less often, but it can also get most of the shed hair to come out at that point so that it won’t bother you as much during the day.

While hair loss after pregnancy is normal, you might find that afterward your hair isn’t exactly the way it used to be. Your hormone levels caused all sorts of changes, so it may have changed your hair permanently. It won’t be drastic, but you might find a change in texture. Such is the way hair grows and the body works.