Many of you moms and dads out there today must be freaking out at the thought that there could be lice on your child’s head. It is a constant worry, every school year is a waiting game because you never know if this will be the year that your child gets head lice.
Its not anything to be ashamed of, every child gets it sooner or later and there is not really anything that you can do to stop it. Today we will be learning a little bit about the behavior of head lice and the symptoms to look out for and we will even be answering the question of whether head lice are contagious.
For research I went to the DermaTechRx Research Center to check out their free information on head lice. They also have info on pubic (crab) lice and body lice, but they have a whole section on headlice that any school mom should bookmark in case of lice emergency. These are the experts and they have been doing this for years. They sell head lice treatment shampoo and even a 3-step lice killing kit on their main website, All Stop.
Reading the latest info, I learned that head lice would rather hang out on a child s head than an adults, very rarely will you hear of an adult catching lice. The lice also seem to favor long hair over short hair, which is why many boys keep their hair very short to the scalp (brush cut) and also because that seems to be their style now a days. Another point we should mention is that head lice really seem to love the hair of females, which makes it much worse for the girl child.
Another interesting fact is that head lice are very rarely found on any African Americans that live in North America. The lice that are found in South America and Africa however have become adapted and in those continents the lice harbor no favorites, all are fair game to them. The cases of head lice are mostly found in kids from three to ten years old but be assured that they can strike a person at any age.
As stated earlier, every child gets head lice sooner or later and these little critters have been a thorn in the side of humanity since the beginning of time but remember this, if you get head lice, it doesn’t mean that you are poor or have bad hygiene. These things have no preference, everything is food to them. Mind you the only thing that they don’t go after are dogs and cats, they would rather human blood over an animal.
Many of you out there are probably wondering what the symptoms are, there really is only one major one and that is itching, but, the child could have had head lice for months before starting to itch. It all depends on how sensitive your child is to the lice bite. And now for the question that has been plaguing you, is it contagious? Yes, quite.
They spread from child to child when their heads touch and we all know that kids are always doing that. These head lice are able to live without food for up to 55 hours before needing to find a host, they scan be spread by bedding, couch cushions (sofa), hats, stuffed animals, combs (of course), brushes, towels, clothes, and finally head phones.
You might be wondering how long a typical infestation of head lice will last, well, a louse lives for approximately a month. New solutions for extreme cases of ‘Super Lice’ are under development at All Stop.
Until next time,
SchoolMom
