How moms can know whether or not their child has head lice

Parents are always very much concerned with the various aspects of their children’s life. They are very much particular about their health. Likewise, loving moms are very much caring about the health condition of their children’s head or hair. They keep a good watch to see if there is everything all right about the look and inner health of their hair and scalp, whether or not they are infested with head lice, etc.

Chances are that there are kids with lice in your child’s class, or it is also possible that you may feel something crawling on your own scalp. Whatever the case may be, the best approach is to undergo a thorough check-up for lice infestation. This is how to know if you have lice in your child’s head or yours.

What you should be armed with for a thorough checking

A bright light
A fine tooth comb or a specific lice comb
Some conditioner of a fine quality
A magnifying glass
Ponytails or clips if you are dealing with long hair
Mirrors in case you are checking your own head

How to perform actually

The following is the step-by-step procedure to check for lice infestation thoroughly.

Setting up for checking.

While checking for lice on your child’s head, make her sit the way her head is fully lit and all sides of her head are within your easy approach.

Wetting the hair.

Lice are usually fast movers and it gets hard at times to detect them even by the most thorough lice hunter. It will become very difficult for the lice to move quickly and very easy for you to spot them out if you wet the hair of your child.

Applying the conditioner

Tangled, thick and dry hair does not allow the lice comb to move freely and smoothly from the scalp to the tips of the hair. So, it is very much wise to apply some conditioner to ensure that combing gets easier and you can focus on lice detection instead of yanking the comb. Besides, it will also make your child feel comfortable.

Parting and fastening the hair

If your child is gifted with thick and long hair, it will be very helpful if you part her hair tightly to expose the scalp to the maximum. Lice eggs or nits tend to reside on hair shafts near the scalp. Lice themselves like to live in warm areas of the head. So, they move close to the scalp away from the tips.

Combing the hair thoroughly

Here comes the final step of your thorough checking for lice infestation. You should take a small portion of unfastened hair of your child and run the lice comb through it from roots to tips very smoothly. After each attempt or pull, look carefully at the teeth of the comb for lice or nits that you have dislodged. Nits are small in size and can be black, brown or tan. Lice are of the size of a sesame seed and range from translucent tan to dark reddish brown. It depends upon how recently these lice have fed. Owing to the small size of the bugs, you should use the magnifying glass to identify them correctly. Continue combing the hair very carefully to remove all the bugs successfully.