Why is my newborn losing his hair? If I cut his hair, will it be stronger? Will it be brown or blonde?
These are the questions new moms usually think about their babies. And in this article, we’ll be answering these queries with some facts regarding baby hair texture predictor.
Stay tuned!
Some babies are born with bald heads and others come into the world with dense hair. Be that as it may, that initial appearance has little to do with the final hair that the child will wear.
That first hair of babies — also that sometimes covers their back, arms or legs — is called lanugo and it is a fine fluff that covers the fetus during pregnancy. In most cases it falls off before delivery, but sometimes it still remains there after birth. In either case, it will be lost in subsequent months.
Until the seventh month of life, the loss of new hair will be very irregular, so it is normal to see small bald spots in babies, which have no importance. They are only areas where the lanugo has already fallen but in which the final hair has not yet grown. These bald spots are more frequent on the back of the head, due to friction with the cradle.
So, the fact is — such hair falls do not indicate that the baby is lacking in vitamins nor it is a symptom of any disease.
In those first months, it is also common for children’s hair to go from curly to straight or vice versa. Until a year and a half or two years, it cannot be known with certainty what color and what type our children’s hair will be.
Brown Or Blonde – Any Baby Hair Texture Predictor Applicable?
If you and your partner are brown, your child most likely has dark hair. And if you are blonde, make it clear. If one has light hair and the other dark, the child will probably also have dark hair, since this gene is dominant over the one with light hair.
Now, except in the case of children who are very brown, most babies are born with lighter hair than they will be when they grow up. This is so for two reasons: because the melanocytes, which are the cells responsible for the color of the skin, eyes and hair, are still immature, and because the activity of their sebaceous glands is still very low. As soon as the melanocytes mature and the sebaceous glands begin to work more, it is certain that your hair will stop being so light (fat tends to darken it).
Regarding whether it will be straight or curly, it depends a bit on chance (genetics is not an exact science), but the curly hair gene is dominant compared to the straight hair gene.
If I Cut His Hair, Will It Be Stronger?
If you want, you can cut the hair to make it grow more evenly. But keep in mind that this will not make it stronger, as many people think since the cut does not modify the root (if it did, we adults would have hair like real spikes).
The nature of the hair is genetically determined and your inheritance influences both the speed with which it sprouts, and its distribution (recesses, swirls…), abundance, strength and color.
Also Read Why Does My Hair Grow So Slow? 7 Tricks To Make Your Hair Grow Fast!
Is Eyebrow and Eyelash Hair Different?
A very common question among parents is why does your little one lose the lanugo on his head and yet still have the hair on his eyebrows and eyelashes. This happens because it involves two very different types of hair: the hair on the head, which, as we have already known, is a very fine fluff that is not actually hair, but lanugo, and which after pregnancy has no function.
And as for the eyebrows and eyelashes, which is a type of hair called “terminal”, which is stronger, is not lost and which protects the child’s eyes from harmful agents such as wind and dust when it no longer lives inside the body of his mother. Once again, Mother Nature shows us how wise she is!
Two Must Know Things About The Infant’s Hair
Babies lose more hair than adults. It is something completely natural since their hair is still in the telogenic phase, characterized by the weakness of its root and a more abundant fall. On the contrary, the anagen phase as found in the adults is defined by a greater strengthening of the hair and as a consequence, a long hair life.
It is good to massage his head every day. Very delicately and on circular movements! Use the tips of your fingers or a child brush with very soft bristles. This way you can relax and facilitate the blood supply to the scalp, which favors hair loss.
What Genes Work as the Baby Hair Texture Predictor?
There are two types of genes — (i) Dominant and (ii) Recessive. Dominant genes are the strongest, so they have the greatest influence in determining traits. Recessive genes are weaker than dominant genes, but they are not overridden. The recessive genes are in the DNA of the individual, although they are not manifested in their physique or in their generation. Therefore, there are characteristics that are inherited after two or more generations.
Each of our traits is determined by a gene from the mother and another from the father. If one of them is dominant, the baby will acquire the trait contributed by this gene. If both are recessive, the genes will be in the same condition, so the baby will have the same probability of inheriting one or the other trait.
In the case of hair, dark hair is a dominant gene, light hair is recessive. For example, if the father has dark hair and does not have light-haired ancestors and the mother has blond hair, it is most likely that the baby has dark hair, because the father’s gene, being dominant, predominates over the mother’s.
On the other hand, if the father has brown hair, but has ancestors with blonde hair, it could be that one of the alleles of the dominant gene contains the burden of blonde hair. In this case, it is likely that the baby inherits it and has blonde hair.
And finally, in the case of red hair, the non-red color is dominant and the red, recessive. For a child to be redheaded, he needs both parents to contain the recessive redhead gene. In addition, it must coincide that the two alleles of the gene carry a redhead charge. That is why, there are so few redheads, because it is a very rare genetic combination in our country.
To Sum Up
There’s no specific baby hair texture predictor available. None can determine the exact color, texture or volume of a newborn before it comes into existence. We can just guess the possibilities based on some scientific facts. Because nature keeps on rolling at its own pace. And that’s where lies the beauty of all the creations — both infants and adults.