Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Can a pregnant female dye her hair?

Over the past 2 decades, there have been a lot of questions regarding the safety of hair dyes. This is of more concern in pregnant women. One study sponsored by the National Institute of Health revealed that there does appear to be a link between use of hair dye during pregnancy and development of a childhood cancer, neuroblastoma. The study showed that use of hair dye anytime in the month before or during pregnancy is not good for the fetus.

It is still not known how hair dyes cause cancer but these products contain many synthetic chemicals which all have the potential to do harm when the conditions are right. Moreover, it has been shown that use of temporary dye is more harmful than permanent dye, possibly because of multiple applications of the former.

So what should a pregnant mother do?

Well, the American Pregnancy Association says that hair dyes are not much of a worry because the amount of dye that comes into contact with the skin is little and unlikely to harm the fetus. On the other hand a report in the American Family Physician  suggests avoiding hair dyes in early pregnancy.  Common sense would indicate that the least amount of junk the pregnant mother is exposed to, the better it would be for the fetus.

No comments:

Post a Comment