Modern parents often mistakenly believe that lice is a disease from the past, but even today, especially in children's groups, head lice is very developed, and therefore it is not surprising that your well-groomed and clean child will one day bring lice from school or kindergarten.
Children's doctor Komarovsky talks about what you need to pay attention to, how to act and how to treat lice in order to quickly cope with the problem.
Causes and signs of head lice
Before talking about how to deal with lice, you need to clearly understand who they are and where they come from. Pediculosis is a parasitic skin disease caused by three types of parasites: body lice, hair lice and pubic lice. The most common in childhood are hair lice, and it is them that are most often brought by children from children's groups.
Lice feed on human blood, eggs are laid in the same place where they feed. In the case of hair lice - on the head, in the hair. Lice are one of the oldest inhabitants of the planet; they have existed on Earth for more than 80 thousand years.
According to statistics, most often head lice is detected in childhood, in a certain age group - from 4 to 14 years. Moreover, the more often the child washes his head, the more likely it is that he will become infected with a parasitic ailment, since lice quickly attach on clean hair, settle down and begin to manage.
It is incredible and almost inexplicable, but most often lice are brought from kindergarten and school by children who are distinguished by increased nervous excitability. Some scientists believe that stress hormones subtly change the smell of the human body - it becomes more attractive to blood-sucking parasites.
A child can only get infected from another person, there are no other ways of transmitting head lice... At the same time, according to Komarovsky, lice do not know how to run and jump over long distances, so usually infection becomes possible through head-to-head contact.
Parents may not notice anything during the incubation period, which lasts from a week to one and a half weeks.
Then the characteristic symptoms will appear: the baby scratches his head, upon close examination, the areas that the child scratched are visible on the skin. Small gray dots are observed around such places. On the hair in the root zone, eggs of parasites (nits) can be noticeable - they are round, white or yellow.
Adult lice are easiest to spot on the scalp above the temples, behind the ear and on the back of the head closer to the neck.
Parents' actions
If a child has lice, it cannot be ignored. The treatment is simple and quick, but it is important to prevent the recurrence and spread of parasites in the team, and therefore without false shame and fear parents should immediately notify the teacher or class teacherso that treatment and preventive measures are carried out comprehensively.
Lice is treated at home, the responsibility is on the parents. It is necessary to destroy not only all adults, but also all nits, otherwise after a certain time the disease will recur.
If permethrin-based drugs are effectively fighting with adults, then the nits will have to be combed out and removed manually, since many of them are quite capable of surviving a pharmacological attack and maintaining their viability.
The doctor recommends combing out lice with metal combs with very frequent small teeth, like plastic combs are designed for prevention.
Today, there is absolutely no need to cut or shave a child's hair. The available pharmaceuticals are quite capable of coping with the task without a preliminary haircut.
The child's clothes and bedding must be boiled, washed and dried in the open air outside, preferably in the sun or on an open balcony that is well ventilated. It is recommended to iron dry laundry thoroughly.
During treatment, the child should not attend classes, go to training, walk in the yard with other children. Visiting shops and other crowded places is not recommended. The quarantine should last at least three days from the start of treatment.
If the child is treated incorrectly or not enough, the consequences can be quite serious - lice, as blood-sucking, carry dangerous diseases, the child can get relapsing fever, and scratching the skin can become infected with fungi, bacteria and lead to inflammatory diseases.
After processing the head according to the instructions for the drug, it is important to teach the child not to cuddle with his classmates and friends when communicating with his head, not to give others and not to take headphones, hats, combs from other children.
It will be good if the child's outerwear is sewn from fabrics that are most difficult for parasites to cling to (this method of transmission can occur if the clothes of an infected child are in the same locker room in close contact with the clothes of other children). Komarovsky considers modern raincoat fabrics the best fabric.
How to treat?
The choice of the drug should be taken as seriously as possible, because most of these drugs are toxic. The use of drugs should be carried out in strict accordance with the instructions.
Komarovsky strongly advises against treating lice with folk remedies, since kerosene and vinegar are often ineffective, and they can harm the child no less than the inept use of pharmaceuticals. Therefore, you need to go to the pharmacy, buy the medicine and use it correctly - this is the only way to quickly get rid of unpleasant blood-sucking parasites.
In the pharmacy, there are two types of drugs - the first (based on permethrin) affect the nervous system of lice. The second drugs are based on mineral oils or dimethicone - they act on lice mechanically - they block their respiratory system, as a result of which the parasites die.
For young children, drugs of the second type are suitable. Natural herbal and mineral remedies (the same second group) include "Paranit" (shampoo, spray, repellent and lotion), "Paranit Sensitiv" - the same thing, but for babies up to 3 years old, "Pediculen ultra" (spray and lotion ), "Lavinal" (shampoo, spray). The group of preparations containing permethrin includes "Para plus" (aerosol), "Nix", "Medifox" (gel, concentrate for the preparation of an emulsion), "Avicin", "Pedilin" and a number of others.
The rules for using these drugs do not imply free access for children to these drugs. If after two uses of the product there is no result or it is insufficient, you need to change the drug.
Do not think that if you mix several remedies for lice at once, then the result will be more pronounced.
Funds during processing should not come into contact with eyes, nose and mouth... If this happens, rinse the affected area without panic. If the child took a sip of the remedy, you need to call an ambulance, and while the doctors are going - try to flush the stomach on your own.
Evgeny Komarovsky tells more about the problem of pediculosis in children in this video.
