To shave my daughter's head (" Javal/ Mundan" ceremony)

I am a Maharashtrian woman born and brought up in North India and married to a Maharashtrain family from Marathwada area of Maharashtra. Obviously, there is a difference in the traditions.

One very widely followed Indian tradition is shaving off the baby's head also termed as "javal" in Marathi and "mundan" in Hindi. It is believed that hair growth improves a lot after shaving off baby's head. In some traditional Indian brahmin families this javal ceremony isn't performed for girls. So is my family. But I belonged to a family who believed this myth religiously. So I was in a kind of dilemma. I didn't want to slip off her age before arriving at any decision.

When my daughter was born, she had moderate hair on head. And as she was growing ... I could see very uneven growth of hair which were also thin. I wanted to try the shaving option if it really made a difference I didn't want to slip off her age. I searched a lot on the net for any scientific reason behind the myth but for my disappointment none of the web pages supported it for any scientific reasons. But there were thousands of examples in India illustrating its success. One more fact that was making our decision negative was a rare example; my friend. She told me that she was bald when she was born and with the same fear her mother didn't shave her head. But today when we see her she has really long thick and really strong hair.

But when I thought over and over, I observed that all young boys get thicker and denser hair growth on their cheek only after they shave it off the first time. Till then it is soft, thin and very less. This logic clicked me.

I just tried to create the logic this way. I too don't think that the number of hair buds that our head has, can change by merely shaving off the head. But, we don't know and can't see those hair buds which exist but can't come out of the skin to form a hair strand. This may be because it doesn't get any pore in our skin thick enough to peep out or doesn't get any opening or any pore at all. I think, once our head is shaven with a blade, the blade goes so close to our scalp that it brushes the pores very well, thereby opening some of the closed pores or widening the pores, thereby giving way to a lot of hair buds underneath to bud out. May be this is the reason why we can observe thicker and denser hair growth after shaving.

And this time I was quite convinced with my own logic. So we finally decided and shaved off her head. Although our daughter looks quite different now like a boy. But it doesn't matter much to us and as of now not at all to her. So its quite fine. I hope it finally makes some difference. If not, I will at least be satisfied that I tried whatever was there in my hands. Rest all is fate.