With spring upon us, baseball season is here yet again. This means your kid may be joining a school softball team for some fun and teamwork in this favorite American past-time. Unfortunately, this is also a time for head lice to spread among kids, which is why so many parents are turning to head lice treatment in Lancaster County PA.
These annoying parasitic insects that live off blood under the scalp spread by crawling from one child to another. This will typically occur during direct head-to-head contact such as when bunching together for a selfie or coming into contact during play. That being said, they can also live up to 48 hours off the scalp, which enables them to get on clothing or headgear, such as a batting helmet, in order to reach another child.
STEPS FOR HEAD LICE PREVENTION
Honestly, the single biggest step you can take, as a parent, to prevent the spread of head lice during softball season is to buy your kid his or her own batting helmet. Many schools are underfunded nowadays, and this means there frequently won’t be as many helmets as there are kids on a softball team. While lice can’t live long away from a human scalp that they require to feed, they don’t need to live long to make it to another kid’s head if helmets are being shared within the time frame of a single softball game. You want to make sure that isn’t your kid’s head.
You also want to counsel your budding athlete not to share their helmet with any other kids since that would defeat the purpose of getting them their own helmet. While you’re at it, tell them not to share other items either used or worn on or near the head. These types of items will include hats, scarves, combs, brushes and any other such clothing items, headgear or personal grooming tools.
WHAT TO DO IF PREVENTION FAILS
Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to prevent something, it’s determined to happen to us. With 6 to 12 million lice outbreaks a year reported in the United States by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), head lice certainly fall into this category. Since kids are more likely to come in close personal contact, the vast majority of these cases are among those aged 3 to 11 years old.
The first step is not to panic. Head lice are annoying but not dangerous. They’re not known to spread disease. That said, an allergic reaction to their bite can cause your kid to get red, irritated, itchy bumps on their scalp. Also, if they itch it enough, open sores can form, which can become a problem in its own right. So, in summary, don’t panic but don’t sit around and do nothing about the problem either.
WHAT NOT TO DO FOR HEAD LICE
If you’re like many parents, you’ll run out to the drug store upon finding out your kid has lice and buy a retail lice shampoo containing pesticides such as pyrethrin or pyrethroid. The problem is that these toxins have been used for so many years that many lice, known as super lice, have grown resistant to them. Home remedies for head lice also abound, but these can be cumbersome in their application and very dubious in their effectiveness.
AN EFFECTIVE HEAD LICE REMEDY
You may not have realized this but there are businesses that do nothing else but treat families for head lice. If you live in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area, you’ll want to know about Lice Lifters of Lancaster. The friendly, compassionate staff at our lice salon will determine if lice are the problem your loved ones are suffering from. Upon finding them, we’ll utilize 100 percent safe and natural methods, techniques and products to eliminate the head lice and their eggs in a fast and affordable way, so your kid can get back to having fun on the baseball diamond without an itchy, irritated scalp.
