Home remedies · Children & infants
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Wet the hair, work in plenty of conditioner and comb strand by strand with a nit comb, wiping the comb after each stroke. Repeat every four days for two weeks.
The conditioner immobilises the lice for a moment; the fine comb lifts them out. The four-day rhythm catches the newly hatched before they lay eggs.
A single pass is never enough. And nits more than a centimetre from the scalp are usually empty shells.
No household remedy such as mayonnaise, oil or vinegar under a plastic cap overnight — that is dangerous and no more effective.
At once: any fever in an infant under three months, a child who is apathetic or has stopped drinking, skin bleeding that does not fade under pressure, breathlessness or drawn-in ribs. A first seizure is always looked at. Refusing to drink for hours counts for more than the temperature.