Will keeping long hair during pregnancy take away nutrients from the baby? Stop torturing pregnant women...

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"Will long hair compete with the baby's nutrition if a pregnant woman keeps it long?"

Rumors about pregnant women appear online every few days, such as "keeping long hair will compete for nutrition for the baby", which cause many pregnant women to feel anxious and increase their burden.

Rumor Analysis

There is no basis for this statement.

Hair is just some dead cells in the body. The nutrition of the fetus comes almost entirely from the mother's blood. Cutting the hair or not has little effect on the nutrition of the fetus.

Not long ago, the topic about whether keeping long hair during pregnancy will compete for nutrients for the baby became a hot topic, causing anxiety among many mothers.

Actually, when I saw this trending search, my first reaction was: Is someone making up some weird taboo for pregnant women again? I guess no one would believe it!

But the next moment, I realized helplessly that there would really be people who believed it...

As long as you have worked in the obstetrics clinic, you will see all kinds of outrageous "pregnant women taboos", "confinement taboos" and "breastfeeding taboos". Pregnant women are forced not to eat this or do that. Even a young lady in our department, a well-established obstetrician and a professional in the true sense of the word, was ordered by her parents not to eat snacks during her pregnancy. The poor girl could only secretly eat melon seeds in the office after get off work, and after eating a small bag, she would pack up and go home without anyone noticing.

In fact, many people may not really believe in those outrageous taboos, but just take the attitude of "just in case". Anyway, there is no harm in cutting your hair short during pregnancy, so for the sake of the child, just bear with it!

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However, pregnancy itself is hard enough, and we should not add these unfounded constraints artificially, which will reduce the happiness of life. Therefore, in order to defend the right of pregnant women to choose their hairstyle, I decided to talk seriously about why pregnant women with long hair will not compete for nutrition for the baby.

Treat hair correctly

Too many branches and leaves on fruit trees will compete for nutrients in the fruit, which may be the inspiration for some people to worry that pregnant mothers' hair will compete for nutrients in the baby. But hair and tree branches and leaves are not the same thing.

Our hair, as well as all other hair on our body, is produced by a type of stem cell called "matrix cells" in the hair follicles. In each hair follicle, matrix cells continuously produce new epithelial cells, which are stacked layer by layer and migrate outward. At the same time, melanocytes insert melanin particles into the epithelial cells, which then form the color of the hair. Therefore, although the hair looks like just a long strip, in fact, every inch is made up of epithelial cells stacked layer by layer.

Hair that has left the follicle is like a nail that has left the nail bed or dead skin that is attached to the body surface. They still have functions such as beauty, anti-itching, and moisturizing, but they are already dead cells and no longer have direct communication with the body. The characteristics of these cells, such as the content of drugs and metal elements, are forever fixed at the moment they are produced. This is why forensic doctors can infer a person's use of certain drugs and exposure to poisons and heavy metals in a specific period of time in the past through hair and nails.

The branches and leaves of fruit trees need the trunk to provide water and nutrients, while hair is just some dead cells of the body. Cutting them will not hurt, and they will not leak juice. Keeping them will not absorb any nutrients from the body. (Of course, if you must be 100% rigorous, too much, too dense, and too heavy hair may cause the neck to consume a little more energy when carrying the weight... I guess.)

Where does the baby's nutrition come from?

We all know that humans develop from a fertilized egg, so what is the specific process by which a pregnant woman helps the fertilized egg develop into a mature fetus?

After the fertilized egg is formed, the cells divide into early embryos and implant in the endometrium. Part of the early embryo differentiates into the fetus, while the other part differentiates into "peripheral products" such as the placenta, umbilical cord, and amnion. Among them, the placenta is attached to the endometrium and exchanges gases, nutrients, and energy substances with the mother through blood.

The fetal blood flows into the placenta through the umbilical cord artery, leaving carbon dioxide, metabolic waste, etc. to the maternal blood flowing through this area. The fetus then obtains oxygen, nutrients, energy, etc. from the maternal blood, gathers from the placenta to the umbilical cord vein, and is transported back to the fetus.

It can be seen that the baby's nutrition almost all comes from the mother's blood, so whether the pregnant woman eats a balanced diet, whether the blood sugar is stable, whether the calcium, iron, vitamins, trace elements, etc. are sufficient, and whether there are substances in the diet and medication that affect the fetus that enter the blood are all very important information that needs to be paid attention to. But long hair? Some aging cells that have long left the body cannot of course take nutrients from the blood, let alone compete with the baby for nutrition.

Looking in the mirror of rumors

Hair and baby are separate matters. Pregnant women can cut their hair short for various reasons, but "competing for nutrition for the baby" should definitely not be one of them.

Author: Doctor Feidao Duanyu

Reviewer: Lan Yibing, deputy chief physician, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine