Miranda’s Hair Loss

From birth, Miranda has had more hair than Eleanor. When we would see some of Agnes’ young cousins, they would distinguish between Eleanor and Miranda by seeing who had the hair that was sticking up — that was always Miranda. Recently, though, we’ve noticed that Miranda’s hair has been getting thinner. I thought we had already passed the point where infants lose their baby hair and start growing in more permanent hair, but Miranda has been continuing to lose hers.

You can see that the hair on the sides of Miranda’s head has gotten thin and a little patchy. You may also notice that Miranda’s head is covered in scratches. No, she didn’t get into a fight with a cat. She’s been doing this to herself when she wakes up and we don’t come get her right away. We’ll find her either clutching her hair with her hands or sometimes scratching her head. The result is patchy hair and scratches. We’re pretty sure that at this age, her behavior isn’t driven from trying to satisfy an itch or something like that. She just doesn’t have the motor control to do something that voluntary yet.

I don’t think we’re going to do anything about the hair loss and scratches. We could put Miranda in gloves, we would prefer not to. Miranda’s never worn them before, the scratches aren’t that bad, and the gloves would interfere with Miranda sucking her hands. We suspect that she would be losing hair anyway. We just need to stop her whenever we see her clutching at her head. At some point I’m sure the trend will turn around and her hair will grow back — I just hope that she doesn’t spend too much time looking like a scratched-up bald baby.