Lice on Heads = Kids Sent Home from School

A recent article published by The American Academy of Pediatrics challenges school policies held in Concord and other nearby communities.  The article states that, " a child should not be restricted from school attendance because of lice.

Diana Rigby, superintendent of Concord Public Schools, states that Concord "has the traditional policy and if you have head lice, you are sent home." 

However, "a guideline to procedure" followed by Concord school nurses takes into account that you "need to maintain students in classroom and learning" according to Kate Bell, Nurse Leader for the K-8 grades of the Concord Public Schools. 

She indicated that one nit wouldn't dictate sending a child home and that "slowly but surely we're coming around to treating it differently.  It has to be more practical." 

Some schools have had "no-nit" policies under which a child was not allowed to return to school until all nits were removed.  However, most researchers agree that no-nit policies should be abandoned."  Nits are the empty egg casings.

Bell also pointed to the age level the student is in determining whether the child stays in school. As younger children tend to congregate in tighter spaces, the likelihood of lice transmission between students rises. 

Cries of joy from children's summer playgrounds mask the fact that lice could be attaching their tiny eggs to the base of their hair with a glue-like substance made by the louse. With children returning from camps and close living conditions, lice infestations are common in the United States and across the world.

The adult head louse is only 2-3 mm long, has six legs and lives 3-4 weeks laying up to 10 eggs once it's mature. 

What can be unnerving to the host or victim is that in the first case of head lice, itching may not develop for 4-6 weeks.  By the time you have discovered the lice, it can add to the sense of panic  "that a rogue colony and not consensually" has decided to take up residence for an extended period on your scalp.,

"Head lice are not a health hazard or a sign of poor hygiene and, in contrast to body lice, are not responsible for the spread of any disease," the report stated. 

Berit Pratt, RN and co-founder of NITWITS in Cambridge, a professional lice and nitpicking service, points to the lack of training many doctors and nurses receive during their medical school training. 

"There is still so much misinformation and the social stigma is strong that if your child has lice, you live in a dirty house and you're a bad mother," Pratt stated. By the time many clients arrive at NITWITS, "it's the last straw.  It is very stressful for women."

Concord Hillside Medical Associates recommends "over-the-counter lice treatment shampoos and washing bed linens in hot water."  Current conventional treatment includes drugs such as lindane, pyrethin and permethrin that were originally developed to take the place of DDT. 

DDT is still used in developing countries to get rid of lice.  Despite the anxiety and discomfort that lice infestation manages to elicit in most families, "lice infestation is so benign, treatments must prove safe to ensure that the adverse effects of therapy are not worse than the infestation," NITWITS stated. Many solutions have been devised to cope with louse infestations over the years.  One of the latest is The Louse Buster, a custom-built commercial machine, designed to eradicate nit, lice and louse combined.