Head lice: Scratch the belief your child is safe

Head lice are equal opportunity invaders, meaning an infestation is unrelated to socio-economic status or cleanliness of the hair

“Head lice can’t jump or hop, but they can crawl fast from one head to the next. So maybe you get two adult lice and the female lays eggs — called nits — at the base of the hair, close to the scalp. They like that warmth.

IT WAS the after-school teacher who spotted the lice on Sarah’s* daughter’s head.

“I’d never dealt with head lice before, so I wouldn’t have been sure what to look for,” says the Dublin-based mum of two primary school children. They were plaiting her hair [at afterschool] and spotted some; my daughter’s very fair-haired, so it was easy to see them, thankfully. To me, they looked like tiny black flies. They were very small, and when I found one, there were usually at least three nearby together.”