Is your child's scalp feeling a bit itchy now that they are back at school? We take a look at the best way to beat head lice without having to shave off any locks.

By Kate Hodal.

For thousands of school pupils across the UK, the sensation of a six-legged creature scurrying across their scalp is an experience they are all-too-likely to discover, a new report has found.

Schools are the ideal breeding ground for head lice, which infest 10 to 20% of Britain's four million primary school children at any one time.

And it's not a problem that's going away any time soon, found the report, commissioned by the UK's leading head lice treatment Hedrin. GPs and pharmacists believe that the insects are now both more prevalent and tougher to treat than ever, partly due to increasing resistance towards traditional pesticide treatments.

It was once the job of the school nurse to check children's hair for lice. But that responsibility has now fallen to parents, a task many are unaware of. According to the report, many parents don't know what to look for and nearly half (46%) don't understand the need to check their child regularly.

While head lice might be a rite of passage that most of us remember from our own school days, that doesn't mean your own child has to live through it. By learning what to look for and how to look for it, you can help nip head lice in the bud.

Lice: A big problem "Lice are a very big problem as far as families are concerned," says consultant nurse Christine Brown, who led the study, Getting Ahead of Head Lice: A Study into Head Lice Management in the UK.

"They generate a lot of guilt and emotion, because most people find the notion of insects crawling in their family's hair just horrific."

The most common age to get lice is between 7 and 12, as school is the perfect breeding ground for them. The insects prey on hosts that can provide them with ample feeding opportunities - and school children, with their sleepovers and close playing habits, provide just that, says Director of Medical Entomology Centre and lice expert Ian Burgess.

"School children spend a lot more time in close physical contact with each other than at any other time in their life, and that contact is more likely to get them catching lice," he says.

But it's not just at school that lice are a problem, as the close-quartered home environment is another area for the critters to breed.

"School is a problem because it's a community that everyone moves in, but lice tend to be a family-orientated thing," says Brown.

"If parents don't check for lice on their children, they can then get them too and then pass them onto grannies and aunts and uncles, who will pass them back and between the family over and over again."

How lice operate Head lice are part of an insect group called "sucking lice", which feed off of mammals (we're somewhat lucky: there's another group, called "chewing lice", that feed off of non-human mammals and birds).

The parasites survive off the blood in our scalps. Their grayish-brown bodies are specially equipped with a blood snorkel, called a proboscis, which they use to "stick into your scalp to find a capillary, and then suck the blood up from", says Brown.

Head lice only live about 30 days at best, says Burgess, but they can lay 150 eggs in that time - so it's essential that you treat them, as they won't disappear on their own.

"I have seen children with several thousand lice on their head, who were in an absolute state," says Brown. "Their parents were so busy they didn't have time to sort it out."

Not treating lice can have serious consequences. Constant scratching of the scalp can lead to bacterial infections; repeated infestations can lead to bullying and stigmatization; and a continually itchy scalp can lead to low self-esteem and poor concentration, says Brown.

"Persistent head lice means you're always operating below par - it's like having a low-dose case of the flu. You don't sleep well at night and you don't concentrate at school."

Head lice myths and facts Common misconceptions that children have to be dirty or practice poor hygiene to get lice are untrue and hurtful to the kids who suffer.

"Lice don't care if you're clean or dirty, they just want a place to feed," says Brown. "They're just after your head - literally."

Interestingly, the study found that outdated head lice legislation still exists, making it technically illegal to have head lice.

Since the inception of the Public Health Act in 1875 - designed to reduce serious public health threats created by filthy urban living conditions - it has remained the responsibility of the householder to keep their family free of the critters, with prosecution as the ultimate punishment.

But it's the fear of infestation, not prison, that Brown and Burgess hope will get parents checking their children's heads more frequently. Indeed, nearly all (90%) of the pharmacists polled for the report also believe parents are not checking for lice regularly enough.

Brown and Burgess recommend checking once a week for live lice and using newer, non-pesticide treatments, which are more effective than traditional pesticide ones, as the lice have built up a resistance to them over the years.

But for parents to really get a handle on lice, the stigma of having them infest our hair needs to be removed from both the child and the parent, says Brown.

"I want to see parents handle this problem with confidence," she says. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about - it's just one of those things that happens, like coughs, colds and chickenpox."

Top tips on combating lice: :: Regular check-ups.

Check for live lice on your child's head once a week as a matter of routine, advises Brown. "Do it in a comfortable position for both of you, perhaps on hair-washing night so that it becomes a regular event."

:: Know what to look for.

"Freshly hatched lice have six legs and are about 1mm across, while grown lice are about 3mm, the size of a sesame seed," says Brown. "If you use a good plastic fine-toothed detection comb, you'll catch even the smallest bug, but you might need a magnifying glass to see if the bugs are alive and move."

:: Get treatment.

Lice can live off of your scalp for as long as you let them, says Brown, so it's essential that you treat them. "The new treatments which work best are non-pesticide and contain silicones to suffocate the bugs," says Brown. "But be sure to use two applications a week apart, so that any eggs that hatch after the first treatment are killed." Clothes, sheets and brushes need not be washed: lice can only survive on scalps.

:: Be lice-aware.

Lice can live on hairs as small as 0.5cm, so "only a well-maintained bald head is lice-free," says Brown. Lice will only live off of head hair, not body hair, so avoid head-to-head contact when possible. Children with long hair can reduce their chances of catching the insects by tying their hair back.