Losing around 50 to 100 hairs a day on average is healthy and unnoticeable — but what do you do when it becomes more than that? Visible hair loss is common in women and is experienced by nearly one-third of those who are assigned female at birth. The condition can range from subtle thinning all over to developing bald spots. While many types of hair loss are hereditary, age and hormones can also play a role in thinning hair.
If you’ve been experiencing female pattern baldness and prescription treatments haven’t given you the results you desire, or if you are simply looking for a more permanent solution, it may be time to consider a hair transplant for women. Hair restoration for women is a fairly common procedure. The best candidates for female hairline transplants have non-hormonal hair loss, trauma-related hair loss, or a distinct pattern of baldness.
What Causes Hair Loss in Women
While hair loss may seem to be a more prominent issue in men, many women also experience thinning hair. While this may become more noticeable with age, it can occur at any time for a variety of reasons. Hair grows in three different cycles and typically increases in length by about 6 inches a year. When healthy, the average human loses 50 to 100 hairs a day. Those with hair loss notice thinning at a much higher rate, and women tend to notice it most at the top third to half of their scalp.
A normal hair growth cycle naturally sheds follicles and replaces them with hair that is equal in size. When a woman is experiencing hair loss, however, this new hair is finer and thinner. The natural hair growth cycle can be changed by a variety of factors, including improper nutrition, medication, illness, trauma, or chemicals — all of which inhibit hair growth. Luckily, this sort of loss can typically be repaired with hair transplants for women.
What Does Hair Loss in Women Look Like?
In female pattern baldness, you’ll notice the growth and replacement of your hair beginning to slow. Your hair follicles may shrink, leading to hair that is finer, thinner, and more easily broken. Female hair loss differs from male hair loss, which starts at the front of the head and recedes to the back. In women, pattern baldness begins at the part line and typically recedes at the temples.
Your hair loss may fall into one of three types. The first type is marked by a small amount of thinning that starts around the part. The second type involves a widening of the part and increased thinning around that area. Type three is typically overall thinning, with a nearly bare area at the top of the scalp.
If you have female pattern baldness, you may be a good candidate for hair transplants for women to help your condition.
How Do Hair Transplants for Women Work?
There are a variety of hair transplant surgery methods, but most surgeons use a state-of-the-art ARTAS system that uses robotic technology to reduce human error in hair restoration for women. During the treatment, you get precise graft dissection and follicle placement with zero staples, stitches, hair damage, or excess scarring to your head.
This FDA-approved method produces highly natural results and yields a shorter recovery time than most other hair transplants for women. Take a look at some of our favorite before-and-after photos from our satisfied patients to get a sense of our minimally invasive, permanent hair restoration for women solution.
Are There Any Other Methods I Should Try First?
If you don’t qualify for a female hairline transplant or just aren’t ready to take that step quite yet, there are several medications and non-surgical options available to treat hair loss and female pattern baldness. It’s important to note that these solutions may not necessarily be permanent, and they’ll often require maintenance to keep best results.
If you’ve been losing hair recently but might not be sure of the cause, know that it may grow back naturally. Hair loss may happen if you’ve recently had a baby, recovered from surgery, undergone cancer treatment, or rapidly lost weight. A trained medical professional can advise you whether your hair may start to grow again on its own, and there are a variety of lifestyle changes you can make to encourage growth before opting for surgery. This may include balancing your hormones, eating a better diet, or just allowing your scalp and hair follicles to heal.
Hair loss may also be caused by certain hairstyles and hair care habits, and your team of medical professionals may advise changing your hairstyle, using less heat, or changing hair care products before getting a hair transplant for women.
There are also a wide variety of non-surgical procedures that have been known to help hair loss and can be included in female pattern baldness treatment plans. One of these procedures is laser therapy, which may help with hereditary hair loss, alopecia areata, and chemotherapy-induced hair loss, too. Clinical studies indicate that this treatment option is safe and painless, but it does require several treatment sessions, often over the course of weeks or months.
Another common treatment is PRP Hair restoration, also known as platelet-rich plasma therapy. This medical treatment is meant to stimulate new hair growth through an increased blood supply to your hair follicles and draws your own blood for processing and injection into your scalp. We often recommend this treatment in conjunction with our hair restoration for women procedures to bolster the effects of both treatments.
How Old Should I Be When I Get a Hair Transplant?
While some women experience hair loss from a young age, it’s a good idea to wait until after 30 to receive a female hairline transplant. This is because your hair growth might not be fully stabilized, meaning your hair may continue to thin in some areas, leaving behind bands or strips of full growth from your hair transplant for women. After 30, hair loss becomes more predictable and can be a better option for patients with thinning hair. Of course, exceptions can be made regarding individual patients and their medical history. We work closely with each patient to determine what procedures are best for them at each stage of their lives.
Am I a Good Candidate for a Hair Transplant?
For the right patient, a hair transplant for women can be life-changing. It’s a great way to regain your confidence and is highly effective when performed by a skilled cosmetic surgeon. Of course, it’s important to note that not everyone is necessarily a good candidate for a female hairline transplant.
Those seeking a hair transplant procedure must have a requisite amount of donor hair before receiving a hair transplant for women. Donor hair can be harvested from areas of the head that retain hair, including the sides and the backs. These areas are less affected by pattern baldness and often grow back with time. As part of a hair transplant, hair follicles will be removed from the appropriate area and transplanted to thinning or bald areas.
It’s also important to remember that while a hair transplant for women has few side effects, there are a couple that may occur. Patients with a significant amount of hair on their scalps may experience shock loss after a female hairline transplant, which is a natural phenomenon that occurs after the hair follicles and surrounding tissue goes through trauma. While this condition is rarely permanent, it may occur in some patients and is an important factor to consider when deciding whether or not to undergo a hair transplant for women.
Because of this, it’s important that you meet several prerequisites for a hair transplant for women procedure first. Ideal candidates for a female hairline transplant include women who have been losing their hair for at least 3 years and have a stabilized pattern of baldness. A hair restoration treatment for women is also appropriate for women who have lost hair due to trauma or burns as well as cosmetic procedures such as facelifts.
Should I Wait To Get a Hair Transplant?
Our expert plastic surgeons counsel each prospective patient about their options and advise them whether a hair transplant or hair restoration treatment for women is the right choice for them. While losing hair can be a confusing and painful process for young patients, there are a variety of factors to consider before undergoing a hair transplant for women.
Factors such as the patient’s individual pattern of hair loss, family history, and medical/cosmetic concerns allow our team to assess how much future hair loss a patient may develop. This information is important to determine the root causes of hair loss and the best solutions. While a hair transplant is the right choice for many women, there are other options. If you choose to wait for your hair transplant for women until you are older, we can recommend products and nonsurgical procedures that will help slow or stop hair loss in the interim. You can also explore hair care techniques that promote a healthy scalp, as well as overall hair health.
