School Nurses Diagnose Lice Poorly
If the school nurse says your child has lice, they are probably wrong, and if you find out about it from the doctor, be even more suspicious. Scratching and white spots on your hair are usually not lice, but they are more often mistaken for lice than you might think.
When the lab asked teachers, parents, and school nurses to send lice or nits samples, only 32% were evidence of infection . (The doctors did worse, with only a 10% chance of success.) The rest were dandruff or dirt mistaken for nits, or random insects that the kids picked up in the backyard – disgusting perhaps, but a quick shower wouldn’t fix anything.
This is why the American Academy of Pediatrics says :
Never start treatment if there is no clear diagnosis – live lice.
There is no need to send kids home from school or cover their heads with pesticides unless you are sure there is a population of lice having a party on your child’s head. In Slate, Melinda Wenner-Moyer explains how the belief that an accidental diagnosis of lice is just the first of a series of mistakes parents and school staff often make; check out the full article to find out more.
When School Says Your Child Has Lice, Don’t Make The Mistakes I Did | Slate
Photo by Gilles Saint-Martin .
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