Though most celebrities tend to celebrate privacy, existing behind a veil not even the most skilled of journalists can pry open, Ashley Graham is not one of them. The supermodel and body-positivity advocate has used her platform to speak openly and honestly about all things motherhood, weight and body related, and even launch campaigns like her recent self-love challenge, which went viral on TikTok. Now, the model and mother to son, Isaac, born in January 2020, is opening up about some of the struggles that accompany pregnancy,
In an interview with E! News, the supermodel said she believed the “postpartum snapback” to be “BS.” “I think it’s an unattainable reality for most women,” said Graham. “And it’s been an unattainable reality for myself.”
Graham has been open about the struggle to learn to embrace her “new body” since becoming a parent, telling the publication Parents, “Everybody told me if you breastfeed, the weight falls off. Well, that was BS. And I’m still working on like 20 pounds.” She added, “When I say working on, I just kind of look at it every day like, ‘Hello, new body.’” She added, “And that’s just kind of how I go on with it.”
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But while weight gain in pregnancy has long been spoken about, rarer still are other side effects. One of the things that surprised Graham the most since giving birth was her postpartum hair loss. Graham revealed, “I think it was like around four months, my whole hairline fell out.” She went on to add, “And that was more traumatic than even birth because I was like, ‘My hair’s falling out in clumps – what am I doing?’”
Hair loss in the first two to six months after having a baby is incredibly normal, but the experience can vary among women. Not all women will experience this condition, and some may experience it in one pregnancy but not the other. Known as postpartum alopecia, it affects as many as 90 per cent of women. When oestrogen and progesterone levels soar during pregnancy, the levelling out of hormones in the months following childbirth can have an affect on hair. When you’re not pregnant, you tend to lose about 80 hairs a day. New mums however, can shed about 400 hairs a day. That said, experts suggest that by six months postpartum, the hair loss should slow to pre-pregnancy amounts.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CL7uQieLBJj/
She said she soon realised it was actually a thing, and while she has joked about the hair loss on Instagram through social media posts that not only shed light on her situation, but also remove the stigma associated with it, she’s determined to keep things honest with her almost 13 million Instagram followers.
“Even through pregnancy, I wanted other pregnant women to know it’s OK to move your body as long as you’ve been doing it before you were pregnant for safety reasons,” she told Parents. “I just have found it incredibly important for everybody to talk about their journey and what they’ve been doing, because it helps people who are struggling.”
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