Women taking prenatal vitamins often have thick, shiny, lustrous hair. If you've noticed this, you may be wondering whether you and your hair could also benefit from a prenatal vitamin. Unfortunately, prenatal vitamins won't have any effect whatsoever on your hair -- that they appear to is merely coincidence.
Prenatal Myths
There's a simple reason that women who take prenatal vitamins often have great hair -- they're pregnant. Pregnancy hormones increase the circulation to your skin and scalp, which nourishes the hair follicles and causes them to increase the rate at which they produce hair proteins. Further, hormones stop the normal shedding process, meaning hair becomes thicker and fuller throughout pregnancy. Though it appears that prenatal vitamins are having an effect upon the hair, in reality, they're completely uninvolved.
What Prenatals Do
While they don't affect hair quality, prenatal vitamins do serve valuable functions in pregnant women. They help to ensure that a woman is getting the nutrients she and her developing baby need, particularly if she's having trouble keeping food down during the first trimester, or getting enough food during the third trimester. They're similar to regular multivitamins, but contain added quantities of iron and folic acid, explain Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel in their book "What To Expect When You're Expecting."
Prenatal Safety
If you are pregnant, you may or may not experience hair thickening -- every woman is different, note Murkoff and Mazel. Whether your hair grows in thicker and faster is a matter of hormones, and doesn't depend upon whether or not you take a prenatal. If you're not pregnant, you probably shouldn't take a prenatal. In an article for MayoClinic.com, nutritionist Katherine Zeratsky points out that while prenatals probably won't hurt you, they are quite expensive and completely unnecessary.
Hair Loss
There's one final reason that you may think prenatals make your hair grow thicker: many women experience significant hair loss around the time they stop taking the vitamins. Again, this is purely coincidence. Pregnant women, after they give birth, stop taking prenatals. Around this time, their hormone levels begin to drop. This causes all the hair that should have shed in the course of pregnancy, but didn't because of hormones, to fall out. While this effect can be troubling, it's unavoidable, and doesn't doesn't result in baldness -- it simply reduces your hair volume back to its normal level.
References
- "What to Expect When You're Expecting"; Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel; 2008
- MayoClinic.com: Prenatals
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