Guest blogger and Strib kids-and-families reporter Jeremy Olson writes today about new advice on kids and lice from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Basically, the docs are saying there's no need to keep kids home if they have lice. Lice, they say, may be a nuisance, but pose no public health threat.
Jeremy also interviewed an enterprising Apple Valley mom who's starting a business called Melissa's Nitpickers this fall. He wrote this for Cribsheet...
After removing lice three separate times from her daughter's hair last school year, Apple Valley's Melissa Loch is going into the lice-killing business for herself.
Loch plans to open the tentatively named Melissa's Nitpickers this fall – offering home visits and lice and nit removal using natural remedies instead of the over-the-counter shampoos that contain low levels of pesticides.
While new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics still recommends these shampoos as front-line treatment for lice, Loch said her approach would include tea tree oil and other natural solutions.
"From dealing with (lice) three times with my daughter, it doesn't bother me," Koch said of lice. "I don't get all squirmy or itchy."
But certainly other parents do – which is why lice removal salons and services have opened in the East Coast and California. Loch believes this would be the first lice-removal service in the Twin Cities.
"There are people who just freak," she said. "They don't want to deal with it and they'd rather have someone else deal with it. It's a personal decision. How much heebie-jeebies are you getting from (lice removal) or not?"
