A Common Problem
Back to school! Parents often look forward to the end of the summer holidays, and the children going back to school. However, quite often, within a few weeks, the problem of head lice and nits rears its ugly head again. Parents often complain that no sooner have they got their child’s head clear of lice and nits, the problem re-occurs, and they feel as though they are fighting a losing battle.

Here are a few facts
Anybody can catch head lice. It’s a problem for the whole community not just schools.

Head lice are small insects with six legs.

The Head Louse has a mouth like a very small needle, which they insert into the scalp to drink blood.

The lice live on or very close to the scalp.

They only live on the human scalp-you can’t catch head lice from animals.

Lice cannot fly, jump or swim.

Head to head contact is the way they are passed on from one person to another.
You can’t catch head lice from objects such as the back of chair.

People often say that head lice prefer clean hair. In fact they don’t much care whether the hair is clean, dirty, dry, greasy, thick, fine, long or short.

Wet combing is the best way to check for head lice
1. Wash the hair and towel dry it-the hair should be damp, not dripping.

2. Apply conditioner.

3. Comb through the hair with an ordinary comb.

4. Start using the nit comb at the scalp pulling the comb through carefully to the ends of the hair.

5. Inspect the teeth of the nit comb for any lice. It may be difficult to see the lice because of the conditioner.

6. Wipe the comb on a tissue, or run the comb under a cold water tap.

7. Do this over and over again from the top of the head to the ends of the hair in all directions working around the head.

8. Clean the nit comb thoroughly in water scrubbing with a nail brush.

It may take 15 minutes or more to do all this properly.