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Subscribe to RSSA new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics says that children should not have to miss school just because they have head lice.
The Academy says that the “no-nits” policy, which mandates that children with any evidence of lice infestation be kept home, benefits neither them nor their classmates and “should be abandoned.”
The report also says that “herculean” efforts to get rid of lice aren’t necessary.
What do you think? If your child showed evidence of head lice, would you keep the child home or follow the Academy’s new guidelines? What do you feel other parents who see such evidence on their own children should do?
Watch the vdeo of the story below, read the story and leave your thoughts in the comments.
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I am truly disappointed in this morning's story on head lice. I think the Today Show was very irresponsible in its coverage of these new AAP recommendations. Why didn't the show consult with parents that have recently gone through a head lice infestation in their homes to show that, indeed "Herculean efforts" to rid the household ARE, in fact, required? Why didn't the show consult with elementary school teachers, that have to deal with a student/parent situation where the parent doesn't follow the recommendations to treat the problem, thus infecting an entire classroom? This story didn't focus on how to clean the home after an infestation - vacuuming, scalding bedding in hotwater, packing stuffed animals in airtight bags for a month... and waiting 9 days between treatment shampoos??? 9 days - are you kidding?? Really disappointing, and honestly, Dr. Nancy Sniderman - this is one of many recent stories where you've gotten it all wrong. Matt Lauer was visibly, and rightly so, bothered by this story - as you'll find many moms will be. I think the Today Show, if they are going to put information like this out there, needs to consult the people in the trenches - parents and teachers - and provide worthy tips on how to rid your child of these bugs. Poor showing, Today. Badly done.
In actual fact, head lice transmit a frequently fatal disease which is basically incurable. It is typhus. I had it through head lice when I was a teenager, as did my younger brother. Fortunately both my brother and I survived.
I ccouldn't agree more. Clearly these people have never had kids with head lice. Between my daughter's long hair and her elementary school having coat closets where everything touched we battled head lice 2 or 3 times a year. It absolutely does take "Herculean effort" to rid your home of head lice but it can be done with minimal loss of school time. I really think they should have talked more about combing the nits and the importance of that, again, agreeing with this lady, nine days? Irresponsible, I am very disappointed.
I wouldn't send my child to school with head lice and I would pull them from school if I found out that a classmate was attending with head lice! This advice is absolutely absurd! Doctors don't know everything!
Yes, I completely agree!! My children, thankfully, have never had head lice. But, if I found out they did, I would NOT send them to school. It is not right to infect someone else's child with anything. That is the same reason I refuse to send my child to school if they are running a fever, have a really bad cold, etc.
A doctor said this stuff? Not ours, thank goodness! The traditional response is still used around here, and it takes a HUGE and prolonged effort to treat lice.
I am outraged at today's segment about head lice. Fortunately, my children have not contracted lice, however, I know several parents who have had to go through lice with their children. Treatment and the preventative steps in your household to control and exterminate the lice is not as easy as the two doctors on the segment lead you to believe. First, you need to use the medicated shampoos and many are harsh on children's heads. The time spent having to comb through your child's head is outrageous (it took my friends at least an hour to two hours a day to comb through their daughter's heads). I am not overexaggerating by any means. Additionally, the cost of laundering bed linens every day, dry cleaning items that can't be washed and the packing away of items (such as stuffed animals) that can't be cleaned in plastic garbage bags for 3 weeks or more is horrid. A friend of mine spent close to $500 between soaps, combs and cleaning because the whole family ended up getting infected. Also, her child got a second outbreak because she took a more casual stance the first time her child got the lice because all the "experts" (like the ones who were on today's show) gave her a casual, easy presumption of how to treat the lice outbreak.
Matt should have asked the two doctors if they themselves have had to ever treat lice on their own children. Anyone who has had to go through this would rather keep their children out of school and homeschool them rather than have their kids and the entire family infected with lice.
The management of head lice is multi-faceted. What the coverage today omitted was the environmental component. Surfaces that touch the head for more than a few minutes need to be treated with the extreme of hot or cold. Sheets. towels, pillows hats, and clothing, stuffed toys need to be washed in hot water or frozen for 24 hours. If appropriate measures are not undertaken in conjunction with treatment re-infestation will occur. I beieve that the incomplete environmental management that leads to reinfestation is one reason that schools have the nit free policy.
Kids who have lice need to stay home from school. Period! If they don't then some parents will not even try to cure the problem and you will have an entire school with it!!!
As a teacher, I can tell you that it can become an epidemic if it's not treated at home. I have personally seen it happen and it is frustrating! The same kids bring it to school on a regular basis because the parents don't know how to treat it or just don't bother to treat it. Sending children to school with lice causes unfair expenses to families that DO try to treat it. In my school, many of these families do not have the extra money to spend on products that help get rid of lice. I am disappointed with this report and think it is irresponsible! It gives people a license to be insensitive.
Being a teacher myself and hearing parents saying things like this, it's just absurd. I believe everyone can spend the extra buck in treating their child. It's a matter of priorty. I imagine these families do not smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, have cell phones, etc.
teachers need to be better taught about head lice. They treat the child as if they were dirty or it is their fault in front of the other students and if that child is already different for some reason not their fault it just makes it worse. I of course would never send my child to school with head lice. usually i find it before any school personal do and get it treated. they do need to be out of school to keep from infecting other students but they need to let the child know that it is not their fault or that it does not mean they are dirty, lice actually prefer clean hair to dirty hair. if any dr. tells you anything different than an all out war against these bugs than don't listen. everything needs to be cleaned. they are very hard to get rid off.
Please don't accuse all teachers of mistreatment based on your own bad experience. As a teacher of 12 years, I have had several children come through my first grade class with lice. Never once did I, another member of the school staff, or another child ever treat the infected child as if he/she was dirty or fault him/her. If any child is found to have lice in a classroom, our school nurse checks every child's head in that classroom as well as any siblings/cousins classrooms and our students love the extra attention from our nurse; the kindest person you'd ever meet, as well as sends letters home to the parents saying lice was found, what to look for and how to potentially remove any lice.
My daughter had head lice eighteen - yes, eighteen - times between the ages of three and eleven. Only one of these was a rebound - I didn't get everything the first time. The others were months in between. Every Saturday was "head check day." I truly believe the problem was a combination of daycare and elementary school. With daycare, it was one parent or parents not taking care of the problem properly and the kids just passed them back and forth like a game of roulette. When the daycare director called my daughter's elementary school and informed the nurse that she was seeing head lice only on students from that school, the nurse said, "Oh, yes, we seem to have had a real problem with that this year." Not ONCE was there a note sent home with my kid to that effect so that parents would know what to look for. When I called the school, I was informed that head checks were not done unless two or more students from one classroom had them, and that notification did not go home to parents until "enough" students in the school were reported to have lice. No one could satisfactorily define for me how many was "enough." Add to that the fact that most parents are too embarrassed to say that their kid or kids have lice, and there's just not enough communication out there. Everything you read will tell you that hair color is not a factor in who gets lice. That's crap. They like blondes. There are heads and hair that they like, and she had one. I lost more time from work over this issue. The shampooing, the combing, the vacuuming, the washing . . . It's just a horrid nuisance. And nine days between treatments is the way to do it. The nymphs that hatch are not able to lay their own eggs for almost two weeks, so if you go back nine or ten days later and kill them, you break that breeding cycle. The important thing though, is the individual removal of the live lice and the eggs. Don't bother with the chemical preparations on the market either. They don't faze the little b------ds any longer. The prescription is fine, but it's pretty wicked stuff. There are preparations out there that do not purport to kill lice or their eggs, but instead immobilize the live ones (they can't outrun the comb that way) and make the eggs slide off the hair a little easier. Go for one of those. Anything with coconut oil in it will help immensely without putting that caustic, poisonous stuff on your kid's head. Good luck to all of you out there. I do feel your pain. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
We had one mom that sent her child to school with lice on a regular basis. I offered to donate treatments to her because it was so out of hand. I too am very disgusted by a Dr. telling parents its ok to be irresponsible. The best thing I found was like the previous poster said, anything with coconut oil. I also sprayed their hair with Tea tree oil and water mix every morning. No more lice.
I agree that this advice is ridiculous and irresponsible. I do think that we need to remember that the American Pediatric Association can make recommendations but the schools have the responsibility for establishing their own guidelines. Contact your school board and let them know you want a no-nit policy in your school. When school boards hear from parents, they listen. Do the same thing with child care centers/homes. Don't underestimate your power as a parent, but please, use your power wisely.
Today show did a disservice to many parents - if you tell people they do not have to be responsible then they wont be. Especially for something as engaging as the treatment of head lice. My child's school had this problem - and it never seemed to go away completely. I must have had ten letters sent home this year warning of an infestation. Luckily my child escaped the problem, but, what a nightmare for those who did not.
Argh! Tea tree and water sprayed on the hair every day and combing the nits out are the only things that have worked for me. Fortunately my kids' school has a strict policy re: lice and informs parents as soon as there is a case reported in the classroom. Even so, with four school age kids I find myself treating the family/home for lice a few times a year. Upsetting! Just one more thing to deal with on top of parenting, working, living life, etc......
As the mother of 3 children, two of which have had head lice, I am appalled by this report!! It took me working non stop for 24 to 28 hours to even feel comfortable that I might have it under control. Not dealt with, just under control. I think they made this seem like a common cold or even a cold sore. This is a serious situation and when a child has head lice they should be kept home until the nits are gone. Actually I think until the head lice is pronounced gone by a doctor. I don' think other parents should have to be the ones who deal with the issue. My two younger ones had it one time and since then we are vigilant about lice especially when letters start coming home.
I was horrified by this whole thing. Kids with lice do need to be sent home, to prevent other children from getting them. I feel very sorry for the children that get head lice, and my school (23 years in second grade) always is discreet in their handling of this situation. However, let me tell you, the problem in the real world is NOT parents taking lice too seriously. I have seen, many times over the years, the same kids, from the same families, have lice again and again and again, over the course of YEARS. Lice are hard to get rid of. No mention on things like upholstered furniture, mattresses, rugs, etc. Also, they are a nuisance, and an expense. No one in their right mind would think "oh it's only lice!" Gag!
If I rant on how many times I have dealt with lice I would be on here forever. I have two children and as a child, had to deal with it also. It is a pain in the butt and is also preventable. I had a "friend" that would never fully go through both of her daughters' hair (and both had long, thick hair) and it kept returning. She continued to use the OTC treatment (which can poison the child if used too much) but would not pick all the nits out. I ended up getting it after treating my kids several times. I was really ticked to say the least. Found out a few tricks though. Put a drop or two of tea tree oil in your full shampoo bottle and that helps to repel them. Hair styling products such as mousse, gel and hairspray make it almost impossible for the lice to stick to or for their nits to stick to. Blow dryers are our friends. Using blow dryers, straightening rods and even curling irons (heat) after a treatment helps a bunch to loosen anything you might have missed. Nits are harder than H*ll to see in blond hair and guess what, my children and I have blond hair. One more thing: when using the nit comb, every time you make a sweep through the hair, have a clear plastic bowl next to you to swish the comb in filled with rubbing alcohol or vinegar. It really does help to loosen the nits. Please, don't stop until you don't see anymore nits at all!! If you have problems with vision (especially after hours of combing {fingernails work even better}), have someone else double, even triple check. Check again the next morning, evening, any time you think about it for the next few days. The nurse will usually do a check before they allow them back in school. I have done all of this and neither of my children have ever been sent back home. Yes, I spend hours "nit picking" but it is well worth it. Another thing a lot of people don't realize is nits and lice stick to clean hair. If hair is "overly" washed, your child is more likely to get it. I'm not saying to wait a week to wash hair, just every other day or so. Use the tea tree oil (not much, it can be just as toxic as the OTC treatments), small amount of gel and a blow dryer on a regular basis and you have much better chances of having to deal with it. Btw, a small amount of baking soda in the palm of your hand with the shampoo will help with any residue the gel, or whatever product you might use. Once a week and there will be no build up. Now my head itches just thinking about it!
I can't believe that anyone would even consider sending a child to school or daycare with lice. As all previous posts stated: eradication is time consuming, can be expensive, and, at best, grossly inconvenient. Not only does the child(or children) and household furnishings require treatment, the family's vehicle interior may be contaminated too.
I did not see this report on the Today Show, only just now found the article above. I cannot believe the absolute irresponsible nonsense these so-called doctors have spouted. They have obviously NEVER had to take care of such an emergency in their own households with their children if they even have any. How dare they subject ANY kids to a possible infestation as this. My daughter came home with it and with her very long hair, I'm here to tell you it was an absolute nightmare trying to get rid of these awful things. Not to mention cleaning her bed and her stuffed animals and all of her things that might have come in contact with her hair. I checked her sister she shares her room with, and sure enough, the little buggers had spread already and my first daughter had only recently come down with them. They were still white so they hadn't been there long but long enough to spread. Then there was the cleaning of the rest of the house because she doesn't live only in her room, and the rest of the family. When I reported it to her teacher, we discovered there was a girl in her group whose head was black with them which meant they had been there a long time. Which brings me to the school's no nit policy. It's a joke because it only works AFTER someone has been diagnosed with them. By then, they have already passed them on to other kids. Some of these parents don't care and don't try to keep their kids clean and free of bugs and they don't mind keeping their child home for a day or two only to send them back to school still infested with them and still passing them on to others. Those doctors should be ashamed and frankly, now I question their ability to make more important medical judgements.
Are head lice different in the USA? Here in Britain we are reccommended to treat with conditioner and a nit comb - and it works. We are told there is no need to treat the home in any was as the lice cannot survive away from the head. As for scalding linen and packing away stuffed toys for days - I had never heard of that until this list of comments!
Are head lice different in the USA? Here in Britain we are reccommended to treat with conditioner and a nit comb - and it works. We are told there is no need to treat the home in any was as the lice cannot survive away from the head. As for scalding linen and packing away stuffed toys for days - I had never heard of that until this list of comments!
Brook
Lice can survive 2 days, nits can survive up to six days without human blood. Therefore if its on a pillow linen etc it would only create reinfestation. Not to mention, you wouldnt want to keep passing it around amoung family members. One louse lives a month and produces 200 nits. So as you can tell letting it go on pillows etc and just getting one or two more creates hundreds more.
Here is my experience and I'll let you be the judge, if it is nothing to worry about and just send the child w/o treatment to school. I didn't like the experience and I wouldn't want other children and parents to go through it as well.
One late evening I decided to check my daughter for lice (Winter 2008, back then she was eight yrs. old). Yep, she had them. So I checked my youngest and thank God she did not have them. I explained to her what it was and told her it wasn't her fault, etc. I was furious, mad and wanted to cry. My husband deployed, being pregnant (second trimester w/ a big belly) I looked like a chicken w/o a head. Scrambling to get my youngest dressed, myself, and hurrying my older one to finish was crazy. By then it was almost 9 p.m., I was trying to get to the military store just before closing. Got there on time just to find out they did not have any treatment kits. Outraged, had to get the gang in the car and drive like 20 minutes to a Wal-mart store. Got home and started to work on my daughters hair, piece by piece nit picking. It took hours. My daughter was exhausted and with neck pain by the time I finished with her. My job wasn't done, it was just starting!!! I started washing, spraying everything, boiling combs/ brushes. I was up til the wee hours.
The next morning we went to school and went straight to the nurses office. I explained to the nurse that I treated my daughter's hair the night before. So she looked through her hair and told me it was O.K. for her to stay. She said I did a good job in removing them and that apparently I caught them early. I let the nurse know that my daughter did not have any sleepovers or friends over, so it had to come from school. She said it is routine to check the other students in the class for them and that she will be taking the necessary actions. I still gave my daughter the follow up shampoo treatment. Did not have any problems the rest of the year. Now it's time for my other child to go to school, it's time for me to train her not to wear other peoples belongings.
I recommend every parent check their child frequently. I always tell my daughter not to share combs, any hair accessory, hats or even jackets. If they do get it, don't hesitate to tell your school, that way they will check the other students for it.
Yeah! What C. Rob said! I had the exact same experience. I mean down to the letter! I make sure I let the Assistant Principal, nurse and teacher know. The more staff that know, the better. :)
I am with the majority of posters. Children should not be in school with lice. I had a child in my classroom two years ago that was exposed at a playmate's house. It took her very diligent mom almost a month to get rid of the lice. They were crawling in her head. The whole time the doctor kept telling her that she was okay to be in school. CRAZY!! Would you want your child to get lice because of someone else's child? "Do unto others" seems appropriate here. I am just hoping we don't have problems this school year with parents that have seen this report and insist that our policy is wrong. Clearly it is the American Academy of Pediatrics that needs to do some fact checking.
Braids! I had my daughters hair in braids for most of the year or at least in a ponytail. For anyone else that may go through this nightmare please check out tea tree oil. A few drops in a spritz bottle of water works. Put hair up in the morning then spritz with the water. The smell will go away within mins. There is also a shampoo of this oil just for lice. DO NOT USE ON ANIMALS. This mixture will also keep spiders away, just spray the corners where you see them.
What some really irresponsible parents fail to realize is that what may not harm their child ie: a common cold, fever etc. may harm others. My daughter has other illnesses that effect her immune system at times. A simple cold may land her in the hospital for weeks. That very same cold can be carried home to an elderly person and make them very ill. The excuse I kept hearing over and over " I cant afford to take off work". Well Im sorry, its not something I want either.
As the other posters implied:
If your kid is sick or has bugs keep them to yourself! We dont want them either!
What one needs to remember is that doctors do not have the same issues that we do. Doctors are concerned about people over-reacting to the infestation and putting deadly poisons on children. I have read about several cases in which children were killed by parents using dip intended for animals (I live in a rural area) or spraying their heads with roach spray. Parents with little education who are told their children cannot come to school until they are nit-free will do the wackiest things. So, bearing this in mind, I understand that they feel that lice are a far lower hazard than these methods used to kill them. And, it is true that the pesticide shampoos should not be used too often because of these hazards.
I know of a perfectly lovely child who was perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but still a nice child. Her mother, who scarily has a degree in early childhood education, got one of the prescription pesticide shampoos because the child was repeatedly sent home from the school for having "nits." I think it was 34 times (no joke)--sometimes the child did have lice, but often, the lice had been killed and the mother just hadn't managed to pick her hair clean. In any case, the mother did something wacky--maybe washed the child in the shower after putting the pesticide on her, exposing her bare skin to the pesticide, or maybe she put a shower cap on the child? I don't know, but the kid now is essentially retarded and has low impulse control. She has neurological complications from the prescription drug.
So, okay, I sympathize about these cases. I can see where the APA is coming from, though frankly, I think that they should just go ahead and hurt people's feelings by telling doctors that if the parents are too damn dumb to read directions that the children need to be dealt with by a responsible party--or maybe it is better just to let them have the darned lice, because the lice won't kill them.
However, as I think we all know, the doctors are basically full of it in terms of those of us who are actually reasonably intelligent people who will follow directions and get rid of the lice. Lice are incredibly contagious and very difficult to get rid of. For the rest of us--that is, those of us with enough intelligence to respond to a forum like this one, those directions are just infuriating.
When we had an infestation in our household, I got rid of it the first time (the other moms I knew usually went through four to six cycles). It meant bagging basically every soft surface in the house (and the car) in plastic and leaving the plastic on for weeks. It meant washing the laundry every day and ironing the bedding. It meant putting the shampoo on once every nine days, yes. But, I also put olive oil on her hair every single day in between, popped a swim cap on her head, and let the oil suffocate the living lice for three hours. It didn't kill them, but it stopped them in their tracks and made them a lot easier to find--it also made her hair dark so that the nits showed up better--I nit-picked for hours. It meant braiding her hair each day, having her put her coat INSIDE her plastic backpack rather than hanging it alongside the other children's coats, and keeping her away from other children's homes and activities where their heads might touch.
Of course, it also meant that we read her The Hobbit out loud while her hair was getting picked. She developed a life-long love of Tolkien.
Since then, I've learned of other methods. There is the Nuvo Method for treating head lice (you can Google this for full directions). Basically, one puts Cetaphil Cleanser on the child's head just like one would the lice shampoo, lets it dry until it turns kind of plastic-like, and then lets it sit while it suffocates the lice. Personally, I'd braid the child's hair and leave it there until I shampooed and repeated the next day, but that's me. Tea Tree Oil, I hear, is also good. There is another method that uses dry heat (like a hair dryer) to dry out the lice and kill them. So, while I would be okay with the APA coming out heavily against pesticides, and I am okay with them saying that not every last egg casing needs to be gone if there is clear evidence that the parents are taking things seriously, I am not okay with them being this casual about it.
Anyway, I really think everyone should read that article on Nuvo Method, as it seems to me that it (or the new device--it looked like a funky hair dryer) will become the standard for treating head lice. But, no, I would not ever send my child with an active case of head lice anywhere without warning the person in charge to be sure to remind her to stay away from all soft surfaces and not to touch heads with other children or to put a hat or coat near theirs.
Tammy1021, you are very right about tea tree oil. It works excellently. All critters will steer clear of tea tree oil. Neem, too!!
My two boys caught lice when they were in 1st and then again in 2nd grade. Instead of going out and buying those harsh shampoos I made a very thick muddy "tea" with neem leaf powder plus a few drops of tea tree oil and the pure neem oil. It looked like sludge. I worked that through their hair and left it on for five minutes. Had them wash their hair and then I checked it. They were completely gone.
I also did my hair as well as my husbands, JUST IN CASE! We didn't have any nits at that point but honestly- I got the 'sympathy itches' just dealing with my boys! lol
Something else I've heard which is just as cheap and effective is coconut oil. Little suckers can't stick onto the hair!! Walmart has a jar of coconut oil in the vitamin section and the deodorized coconut oil is ALWAYS in the ethnic section for cooking. From what I've heard all you have to do is work the coconut oil through the hair and then use a nit comb to remove them. Wash, condition, and then check the hair.
There have been numerous reports on the harsh chemicals in those shampoo treatments causing everything from rashes to death. I wouldn't touch a bottle of that stuff with a ten foot pole. There are too many natural remedies to choose from as alternatives.
We want to kill the lice not the kid, right?
Phones, ear buds, walls, etc. Lice can be transmitted from these items also. Im so glad my youngest son is a senior this year. We havent had this problem since we moved from a larger city to a smaller town and smaller school system. Kids with lice should be lice and nit free when in school. We have 5 kids and I know how much work it takes to get rid of them and the hefty price tag that goes with it.