We know that when a girl enters puberty at the age of 12 or 13, secondary sexual characteristics begin to appear, and pubic hair begins to grow from this time. The vast majority of women have pubic hair, but a small percentage of women have sparse or no pubic hair, so what’s going on?
Why do some women have no pubic hair?
Some women do not have pubic hair for two reasons: they have low levels of androgens, the receptors in the pubic and axillary hair follicles that receive androgens are insensitive or otherwise defective, or they have no such receptors at all.
When pubic or axillary hair is highly sparse or absent it is called oligohydramnios, which affects about 2.5% of the population. This is not a pathological condition and most women with oligohydramnios have normal hormones, menstrual cycles, development of sexual characteristics, sexual function and fertility.
In some women, postpartum hemorrhage results in hypopituitarism with Sjögren’s syndrome, in which the patient is extremely thin, amenorrheic, infertile, gradually losing hair and pubic hair, weak, and has an extremely low libido. This condition is usually not isolated to body hair loss, but is associated with many symptoms and should be treated promptly.
However, more people with oligomenorrhea are physiological, and although they don’t have these hairs, they don’t have to be upset about it, as more and more people are trimming their hair, which proves that having pubic hair doesn’t bring much benefit to their lives, and they don’t have to be ashamed of it.
There are a few cases of hypohairiness that are pathological, such as the genetic disorder called Turner’s syndrome, in which the patient has 45 chromosomes, X and one sex chromosome missing, which is caused by the non-segregation or loss of the sex chromosomes during the maturation of sex cells. This female patient is hypogonadal and presents with a low profile, webbed neck, underdeveloped breasts, infantile genitalia, hairless pubic mound, amenorrhea due to lack of follicles in the ovaries, and is able to have sexual intercourse but is not fertile.
Women with hypothyroidism may also have no axillary hair and scanty pubic hair, and may be sexually active but have a significantly reduced libido.
Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism is also associated with oligomenorrhea, and treatment of mild cases can restore fertility.
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