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Information for parents
As a parent, being told your child has cancer is truly devastating. What you tell your child is a personal decision and will obviously depend on their age.
Whatever you tell your child about the disease, the hair loss which is a side effect of most (but not all) treatments is an unavoidable truth.
A common question is how quickly will the child lose their hair? The answer to this depends largely on the treatment being prescribed. Your oncologist will be able to advise on this matter, but typically hair loss starts within 3-6 weeks following the first chemotherapy treatment. Hair loss will then be gradual over time, and often not all the hair will be lost.
The Little Princess Trust is aware of these timescales and when we have a child who has just been diagnosed, we can often provide wigs very quickly so that the wig is available before the original hair has been lost.
Our very best quality wigs however, often take 6-8 weeks to make because each one is hand made to exactly fit the child’s head and matched in colour and texture to the original hair. The decision to obtain a wig quickly verses waiting for the best quality available is something we can discuss with you and we may be able to provide a wig as an interim measure until the bespoke hairpiece has been completed.
Little Princesses work closely with suppliers around the UK. We will always try to ensure that you won’t need to travel too far for the measurement and can often arrange local hairdressers to assist in the fit and initial cut. We can sometimes arrange for new wigs to be cut by celebrity hairdressers at their salons for older children who may appreciate being pampered.
We always pay 100% of the costs, sometimes parents ask to make a contribution so in these cases we just ask that you make a one-off donation to the charity. Once we have referred you to one of our suppliers, you will make arrangements with them directly but do not need to mention costs – we pay the supplier directly.
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