Since hair restoration surgery is a good option for nearly 90% of the balding men in the country, women think they will also make good candidates, but this is usually not the case.

Very few women have the type of hair loss that make them good candidates. Most women have diffuse hair loss instead, an overall thinning in all areas of the head, including the sides and back, which are the areas that act as donor sites in men. It is from these sites that the hair is removed for hair transplantation to other areas of the head.

In men, the donor sites are called stable sites, which means that the hair and follicles in those areas are not affected by the dihydrotestosterone (DHT) that shrinks follicles elsewhere on the head. This is the situation in those with androgenetic alopecia, or what’s commonly called male pattern baldness.

In female pattern baldness, however, these donor areas are usually unstable. They are thinning, just like the other areas of the head. The donor areas in women are affected by follicle-killing DHT. That means that if you remove hair and accompanying follicles from these donor areas in women and transplant them to other areas, it’s just going to fall out. Any doctor who would attempt to transplant hair from an unstable donor site is potentially unethical and may just be trying to take economic advantage of the patient.