Norwood 1: the stage, and what patients at this stage had done
What Norwood 1 means
No significant recession: the hairline sits at or near the juvenile position. This is the reference point, not a stage of loss.
In Norwood's scale only type III and beyond counts as balding: type III is “the minimal extent of hair loss sufficient to be considered as baldness” (Gupta and Mysore, 2016). Whether a Norwood 1 hairline stays put is the question: mature hairline vs receding.
Not only transplant patients use the scale: 236 people on reddit named Norwood 1–1.5 as their own current stage, and of the 121 who also gave their age, the middle age was 21. How old people were at each stage and how it moved for those who named it again later: receding hairline stages.
Patients who were Norwood 1 before surgery
Only 2 people in the threads we have read described themselves as Norwood 1 before a hair transplant. That is too few to say anything about typical graft counts or doctors, so we don't. That fits the definition: Norwood 1 is the reference point, not a stage of hair loss.
How to read these numbers
These are people who chose to post on reddit and named their doctor, not a clinical study. The stage is their own description, not an assessment by us or by a doctor, and graft counts are what they wrote. A person counts once at a stage, however many updates they posted. Removed threads are left out of the quotes. A surgeon's assessment of your own scalp comes first.
More: all Norwood stages, the hair transplant cost calculator, and recovery month by month as patients report it.
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