How to Prevent Lice: Tips from Experts
Preventing lice is important…but knowing how to prevent lice can be challenging, especially when children are at school.
Parents, teachers, and nurses are always asking what they can do to prevent their child from getting head lice.
So, our friends at Combers KC have lice prevention tips to help families everywhere avoid getting head lice as much as possible. Being aware and proactive on detecting head lice is the first step.
How to Prevent Lice at Home
During the school year lice is a bigger concern, but it is something to consider year-round.
Heartland Healthy Heads is happy to provide the following tips to prevent lice and best practices to keep in mind.
#1 Pre-Check Before Camps
Children should be checked for any indication of head lice before and after summer camps. You want the all clear before they leave, but you also want to make sure they didn’t pick it up while they were away.
#2 Detect Early
Check your child’s head before and after sleepovers as well. Early detection will make lice removal much easier and it will stop the spread to the rest of the family.
#3 Take Preventative Measures
Preventative shampoos, conditioners, and spray shields will help prevent head lice too. Lice do not like these scents, so adding one of these to your packing list for camps and family vacations will assist in lice prevention.
#4 Sleep Head To Foot
Having children sleep head to foot will also help them avoid getting lice. 95% of people contract lice through direct head to head contact, sleeping this way will avoid this.
#5 Send Comfort Items With Kids
Children can take their own pillow and blanket as well, just to be sure there is nothing transferring back and forth.
#6 Keep It Up
Girls, who are more susceptible to getting lice because of their longer hair, can wear their hair up, off the shoulders. Buns, braids, ponytails, and even hats will keep the hair up and make it more difficult for lice to latch on.
#7 No Sharing
Make sure no one is sharing brushes, hats, helmets, or any other hair accessories. If possible, write your child’s name on them so everyone knows who’s is whose and there is no confusion.
#8 Get A Good Comb
A good Nit comb will save every parent a lot of stress and frustration. If you see your child scratching, or just think you see something suspicious in their hair, checking them with a Nit comb will be the easiest way to find traces of head lice.
What is Super Lice?
Over the past few weeks, Super Lice has dominated the headlines of major media outlets across the country. These are head lice that have become pesticide resistant and do not respond to over-the-counter lice-removal products.
What Does the Research Say?
It is our job to stay up-to-date on the latest research being conducted on head lice, so that we can arm ourselves and our customers with the most accurate information. So, it was no surprise to us when Dr. Kyong Yoon – who has researched pesticide resistance in head lice for 25 years – released his latest findings.
Yoon found that in 83 percent of the states that he sampled – including Kansas and Missouri – head lice have gene mutations making them resistant to pesticides in the most popular over-the-counter lice shampoo treatment. Since most of our clients have used an over-the-counter prescription at one point, we understand the importance of Dr. Yoon’s research.
Lice Prevention Highlights
- Weekly family lice checks: The best preventative method you can have. The most important tool to help with this, is a Terminator Nit Comb. This comb will remove 80-85% of everything in the head. Weekly combing will help in early detection and eradication of head lice. If you find it early, the treatment will always be easier and the risk of spreading to others is significantly lower. If you do not use any other preventative tip, make sure this one makes your weekly to do list.
- Wearing your hair up, off the shoulders is another great preventative. Ponytails, buns, and braids are all great looking hair styles that aid in keeping the lice away.
- Preventative Shampoos, conditioners, and spray shields also help lice stay away. If used daily, products that contain tea tree, rosemary, lavender, or eucalyptus will keep the Louse from transferring from someone else’s head into your child’s. Lice do not like these scents, so putting just a little on your child’s head will help.
- Sleepovers are fun and exciting and shouldn’t be avoided because of the head lice risk. Children should sleep “head to foot”, so that their heads are not laying right next to each other. Also, send your child with their own pillow and blanket. When the sleepover has ended, check your child with Terminator Nit Comb to ensure they didn’t get lice (see #1).
- Do not let children share hats, brushes, helmets, or any other items that could cross contaminate.
If you are in need of lice treatment, Combers KC is a great option in Kansas City…
Heartland Healthy Heads offers:
- Head lice checks
- Head lice treatments
- Complete treatment and preventative products available for purchase.
From our family to yours, iFamilyKC
