Hair Treatments and Pregnancy

I have asked Dr. Genia Bekker, who is an Associate Director of division of Gynecology at Nassau University Medical Center , East Meadow to expand on the topic of Hair treatment in pregnancy.

Boris Petrikovsky, MD, PhD

Hair Treatments and Pregnancy

Many women ask me if they should stop using hair coloring, hair bleaching, permanents and hair relaxing agents during pregnancy. The concern is “Do you think it will hurt my baby?”.

I have prepared some information that I hope you might find helpful.

Disclaimer : First of all, please keep in mind that there is a 3% to 5% risk, in the general population,.to have a baby born with an anomaly.

Second, the recommendations below are based upon small doses of chemicals, animal data and limited experience in pregnant woman.

Hair coloring : During hair coloring very low levels of dye are absorbed through the scalp skin. This tiny amount is believed to be safe for the developing baby. Many women have dyed their hair during pregnancy with no known reports of negative out comes.

Hair permanents (curling) and hair straightening : The solutions used for these processes might irritate the scalp, but again, only very small amounts are absorbed through the skin. It does not seem to cause any defects in the developing fetus.

Hair products during breastfeeding : There is no information available on the subject. However, it is very unlikely that significant amounts of chemicals might enter the breast milk and have effect on the baby.

The information was prepared using the data from OTIS (Organization of Teratology Information Services) website www.OTISpregancy.org

Genia Bekker , MD

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