Ulyana Vosonina/ article author
Medical education. Author of articles on the pestpro.bigbadmole.com/en/ project

Lice in children in the hair

Lice in a child start up more often than in adults. This happens because children treat their own health carelessly. Girls swap hairpins and use girlfriend hairbrushes. The boys touch their heads during the fight, lend helmets and helmets.

What lice and nits look like

These are small translucent insects. Parasites do not grow more than 3 mm, have 6 legs, with which they cling to the hair. They feed on blood.

Lice lack the ability to fly and jump high, but they quickly move through clothes and hair. Therefore, when a sick child enters the team, parasites quickly spread among other children. The peak incidence occurs in the fall.

Lice
Lice

Feedback

Summer is over, and I brought my son to kindergarten. In less than two weeks, the child began to scratch his head. At the first inspection of the hair, insects were found. I immediately turned to the teacher. On the same day, a nurse examined the hair of other children. Pediculosis in kindergarten showed up in five children!

Elena, Moscow

A female head louse is capable of laying more than a hundred eggs in her life. Nits in children’s hair look the same as in adults. They look like grains of dandruff. But the main hallmark of nits from seborrhea - this is the inability to just remove them from the hair. The egg is firmly attached to the hair with a sticky substance.

Sometimes these insects are confused with bedbugs, fleas or ticks. To make it easier to distinguish head parasites from other insects, you should know what lice and nits look like. To do this, you can look at the photo of lice in children in their hair.

Some adults notice that the insects that live on the hairline of the baby’s head are different. Parents begin to worry that the child "picked up" several different pests. But this is not so. Before becoming an adult, the louse experiences three molts. With each new change of chitinous cover, it changes appearance. The third molt turns the parasite into an adult.

Nits
Nits

Interesting!

An adult female lays eggs after the first portion of blood.

Where do lice come from

Pediculosis is a common disease among children under 12 years old. Despite this, several myths circulate around him:

  1. Lice in children appear from nerves. Some mothers are sure that because of the stress experienced in the child, insects start up in the head. But this is not true. Nervous Lice can not start, although there are theories in defense of this statement.
  2. Pests are carried by animals. The parasite can only feed on human blood. On a cat or dog, a louse will not survive.
  3. Insects start from dirt. Lice cross over from an infected person and they are more comfortable on clean hair.

You can detect lice in a child after a camp or swimming in a pond. The insect quickly gets to the hair of a healthy person and begins multiply rapidly.

Causes of lice infestation a few, the most common ones:

  1. Close contact. The parasite will immediately run over to the child, if he comes in contact with the hair with an infected person.
  2. Swimming in bodies of water with stagnant water. Warm water is the habitat of parasites. There, in search of a new owner, lice can live up to three days.
  3. The use of common hats, hairpins, combs. Girls love to change jewelry and borrow each other's hairbrush. Through these items, lice become infected.
  4. Long stay in the children's team. The child often returns from the camp with "pets" on his head. Also, the head view of lice is instantly distributed among children in kindergartens, schools and entertainment centers.
  5. Use of public transport. At rush hour, the child is in contact with other people, and no one will guarantee that everyone around is healthy. For a five-minute trip, the louse will have time to get to the hair of the child from another head.

Some parents, in an attempt to protect the child from infection head licewash his hair every day. But, once in the children's team, the child still gets sick. Then fathers and mothers start looking for photos of lice and nits on the child’s head, thinking that other insects are crawling in their hair.

On a note!

Clean skin attracts lice even better than dirty. Lice are easier to bite. But this does not mean that it is worth walking with unwashed hair.

Symptoms of Pediculosis

Lice in children-1
Lice in children

Not everyone knows how to understand that a child has lice. Moreover, some children itch and do not say anything to their parents. This happens because someone does not attach importance to unpleasant sensations, but someone is afraid to admit that his head hurts and itches.

Adults should understand how lice look on a child’s head, and that indicates the presence of parasites.

You should examine the hair of the child if the following symptoms appear:

  • the child often scratches his hair;
  • wounds and scratches appeared in the hair;
  • white grains began to be seen on the temples and nape;

If during the inspection of the hair insects and nits were not found, and symptoms of lice in children are observed, it is worth examining the child’s clothes and bedding.

On a note!

Parasites do not always settle in the hair. Cootie likes to live in folds and pockets of clothes.

The colors of lice of different species are different. The head louse will have a light yellow color. Wardrobe is darker. Her color is close to brown.

In the early stages of infection, the symptoms of lice in children are as follows:

  • nervousness,
  • anxiety,
  • bad dream
  • mild itching.

It is difficult to recognize lice in the early stages of the disease. Therefore, inspection is best done under daylight and with a magnifying glass.

Feedback

My daughter began to sleep badly. She woke up at night, whimpered, scratched her ears. I thought that the baby earned otitis media, but the local pediatrician found behind the ears lice bites.

Katerina, Vladivostok

In children under three years of age, the manifestation of symptoms is more pronounced. They suffer more from insects, and their combs quickly turn into pustules. Photos of pediculosis in children demonstrate how the disease manifests. Insect bites look like red dots. If a bacterial infection joins, then wounds with a yellow crust appear among the hair.

Lice in children
Lice in children

Pediculosis treatment in children

After you have been able to identify lice, you should consider which pediculosis treatment select. Increasingly, parents choose pest shampoosbut some opt for folk remedies.

On a note!

Not every drug from a pharmacy is suitable for a child. Children are sensitive to chemistry. A poisonous agent can cause severe allergies or burn scalp.

If the detection of the disease occurred at an early stage, then the comb will help to cope with it.

Pharmacy products

Most often, the pediatrician prescribes a special shampoo for children or lice spray. Before using it, you should read the instructions. It is better not to buy this product without a doctor’s prescription. After all, a poisonous drug can poison a child.

Typically, children are prescribed the following drugs:

On a note!

Nowhere is the only spray that can be used to treat the hair of babies. It does not contain insecticides and does not cause allergies.

After the first treatment, parents sometimes turn to the pediatrician due to the fact that there are white lice in the head. But these are not the insects themselves, but their eggs. Seven days later, parasites will emerge from them. Therefore, treatment with the drug is repeated after a week.

Means Nyuda-1
Means Nyuda

Folk remedies

An effective insect repellent can be prepared in your own kitchen. The most commonly used recipes are:

  1. Hydrogen peroxide mixes up with water 1: 1. The mixture is applied to wet hair. Head wrapped in a bag, and then a towel. After 40 minutes, the product is washed off.
  2. Tar soap applied to wet hair, kept for 40 minutes under the package, and then washed off.
  3. Vinegar 9% diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 3. Vinegar solution process each strand. They cover his head with a towel, put on a scarf from above. After 40 minutes, the hair is washed.

Important!

Use to treat pediculosis in a child kerosene or Dichlorvos prohibited. These agents can cause severe burns and poisoning.

Special scallop

A lice comb helps get rid of insect nits. It is used after pediculosis has been recognized and for the prevention of the disease.

Before, how to comb out lice and nits, hair is recommended to be treated with water with citric acid: 5 g of powder per 250 ml of warm water. The composition softens the sticky mass with which the nits are attached to the hair and lice eggs become easier to comb out.

Frequent-Toothed Comb
Frequent-Toothed Comb

Feedback

Than just did not handle the head of the child. Insects appeared again and again. The pediatrician advised to purchase a special lice comb. They managed to comb out the nits, and lice no longer bothered us.

Larisa, Yekaterinburg

The comb also helps to understand whether the child has lice. If nits and insects remain on it, then it is worth checking the hair and treating the head with a parasite treatment. Hair combed out 4 times a day for 5 days. After combing, the comb is washed and treated with alcohol.

Lice prophylaxis

It is difficult to completely protect children from this scourge. But lice prophylaxis still needed. It is as follows:

  1. Explain to the child about lice and how they get into the hair.
  2. Change bed and underwear. Iron the seams of clothes.
  3. Explain to the child that you can not use other people's things.
  4. Make sure that the child does not communicate with people who have pediculosis.
  5. Once a week, inspect the baby's hair and comb it with a comb.
  6. Wash your baby's head at least twice a week.

If the child will have trains by public transport at rush hour, then certain measures should also be taken:

  1. Braid the girl’s braid and hide her hair under a hat.
  2. Try to put the baby in the seat. There he will be less in contact with other people.

On a note!

It is forbidden to use lice products for prevention. All therapeutic pharmaceutical preparations of this plan are toxic and are not suitable for continuous use.

To protect the child from lice will help "folk medicine chest." Apply lavender essential oil over the ears and occipital region. Louse does not tolerate this smell.

A routine inspection should be carried out during the day and with a magnifying glass. You can use the headlamp, the light of which will be easy to direct to the desired point. Some mothers shave their sons for the summer so that no parasites appear on their hair.

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Comments10
  1. Elena Petrovna

    I work as a teacher and every year it starts the same way: the kids are not alone in the kindergarten. They bring liveliness on their hair. We have to again tell mothers, daddies, grandparents about the prevention of pediculosis.

  2. Anastasia

    Thank you for the article. My baby is still a year old, but recently they recorded her in a kindergarten. Now I am collecting information about possible problems that may arise. A lot is written about infectious diseases and problems with adaptation, but they are silent about lice.

    1. Liza

      I agree with Anastasia. There is little information on parasites. It's good that this article came across.

  3. Artyom

    The eldest daughter recently brought lice from the camp. It was a horror! Even a one-year-old son fell ill. They shaved off all his hair so that he would not suffer from parasites.

  4. Katyusha

    Daughter brought lice from school. Grandma immediately grabbed kerosene, but I stopped her. Now there is such a good selection of tools in the pharmacy. Why poison a small organism?

  5. Lena

    I bought a comb, which the article says. A good thing. Etched lice, and then combed out dead insects and their eggs.

  6. Veronica

    And does anyone know how dead nits differ from living nits.

    1. Zoya

      Veronica, they can not be separated from the hair. And the dead nits are darker in color and do not click if pressed.

  7. Anastasia Alekseevna

    I always ask my daughter to iron children's clothes, and she brushes it off. I will show her the article. Let him read that parasites can live not only in the hair.

  8. Dasha

    I did not know that lice can live in rates. Now I will examine my daughter’s curls after relaxing by the pond.

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