After a person dies does their finger nails and hair continue to grow?

Answer 1

no they dont. It is commonly claimed that hair and nails will continue growing for several days after death. This is a myth; the appearance of growth is actually caused by the retraction of skin as the surrounding tissue dehydrates, making nails and hair more prominent.

Answer 2

Yes, they say for a little while your hair and finger nails continue to grow. And a woman's lips continue to move for a while. Just kidding you ladies.

PS...the cells that make up the hair and nails are the last to die.

Answer 3

Your hair and nails do not continue to grow after you die; it's all optical illusion.

The sorry fact of the matter is that we dehydrate after dying. Our flesh dries and, in so doing, pulls away from nails and hair. Thus, though the nail on our big toe, for example, remains the same length as before, the toe it is seated upon shrinks. Because we are accustomed to nails and hair growing, not hands, feet, and heads shrinking, we perceive this change as an increase in one rather than a decline in the other.

To quote the respected forensic anthropologist William R. Maples:
It is a myth that fingernails and hair continue to grow after death. What really happens is that the skin may retract around them, making the hair and nails prickle up and jut out more prominently. Erich Maria Remarque, in his novel All Quiet on the Western Front, imagines a dead friend's nails growing in weird, subterranean corkscrews after his burial. It is a powerful, disturbing image, but it is pure moonshine. No such thing occurs.
To combat this shrinkage, funeral homes slather moisturizing cream on bodies, particularly on the faces of men with heavy beards.

Among the living, fingernail growth averages about a tenth of a millimeter per day, with toenails growing about a half to a third slower. However, drugs or disease can affect these rates. The middle and fourth fingers' nails tend to grow a little faster than those of the fifth and thumb.

Bodies appear to do strange things after death, but all of them are attributable to the decomposition process rather than supernatural forces. At times a moldering body will make noise, but that is only the sound of gas (a natural byproduct of the putrefaction process) escaping from the human vessel that previously contained it.

Answer 4

No they have the appearance of growth because the moisture in the skin is leaving the body, and it forces the cuticle, and scalp to recede. This gives the illusion that the hair or nails are growing.

Answer 5

No, the exterior shrinks and withdraws as water is removed from the physique making it look that the nails advance. Hair, like nails are ineffective and could no longer proceed to advance. It in trouble-free terms looks that they do from the physique's dehydration.

Answer 6

NO! Think about it, if the brain is dead, why would anything continue to work? Skin rots and shrinks, making hair and nails appear longer.

Answer 7

Nope. Your skin dries up and pulls away from your body, giving the allusion of longer hair and nails.

Answer 8

of course not! not after 24 hours no. but in 24 hours time they still grow. 24 is just an average of it. differs from age to age.

after 24 hrs nothing grows, except wormzz.

Answer 9

When someone has been dug back up there was hair growing. I don't know about the fingernails. I don't know if this is for everyone either.

Answer 10

This is true - but only for a very short time.


EDIT - actually I think Draftboyg has the correct answer - 10 points to him