How To Check Hair for Nits

Choose a place that has sufficient natural light, eg outdoors or by a window indoors or with a strong lamp. To aid in seeing these small parasites you may like to use a magnifying glass.

Check all members of the family every week as follows:

Part the hair as you check:

1. the scalp and hair at the back of the neck

2. behind the ears

3. around the crown area of the head

4. under fringes

5. at the beginning of plaits and/or under headbands

If head lice are found it is important to check the whole family and treat everyone as directed. Please take into consideration bedding and clothing that will need to be washed or placed into a hot drier for  a 15 minute cycle, this will effectively kill any stray head lice looking to get back onto a host.

Head lice live for approximately 30 days on a host and a female louse may lay up to 100 nits (eggs) within this time.  Head lice once off of their human hosts will eventually starve.  The NPA suggests that, in most cases, a head louse will not survive for more than 24 hours off of its human host.   However more than 24 hours after removal from a human host head lice have been observed by Nit-Enz - very much alive!       

• Nits (the eggs of the head louse) are small yellowish-white, oval-shaped eggs that are "to the side of a hair shaft glued" at an angle.

• Once laid, it takes 7-10 days for a nit to hatch, and another 7-10 days for the female to mature and begin laying her own eggs. 

• Once a nit has hatched it goes through a moulting phase. This will occur 3 times before the young louse becomes an adult.

• Nits from hatching feed up to 5 times a day.

• Head lice do not have a preference for clean or dirty, long or short, straight or curly hair. Any head is fair game.

• Head lice (pediculus humanus capitis) are flat bodied wingless insects with 6 short legs ending in huge claws that they use to cling to their hosts hair.

• Head lice have 2 "heat seeking" antennae which register temperature. Head lice survive within a 30 degrees Celsius contour, therefore they keep close to their food source, blood and lay their eggs within this warmth zone.

• Head lice are crawling insects. They cannot hop, jump, fly or swim.

• When the head lice's host swims the head lice grips onto the hair shaft and blocks its breathing apertures and can hold its breath for hours if not days. They are not likely to leave the host's head while in the water to go looking for a new host to feed and breed off. 

• Head lice do not thrive on pets. 

• Head lice need human blood in order to survive. 

DANGERS OF PESTICIDE TREATMENTS  

Malathion and Permethrin have been linked to cancer, immune system suppression, reproductive and genetic damage and hormonal disruption to name just a few.  

These are the most common pesticides used in synthetic chemical treatments found NZ pharmacies! Hormonal disruptors have been found to affect children's ability to learn, to fend off disease and to reproduce - the foetus in the womb and young children are at particular risk. 

Malathion is also used in flea collars and animal parasite treatments!