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How do lice reproduce?

Dealing with lice is sometimes not an easy task for many parents, especially when they realize later that their children have lice and do not understand how it is possible for them to have so many lice.

How lice reproduce

To understand how head lice reproduce, it is first necessary to explain the life cycle of the head lice, which goes through 3 phases:

  • Nit, this is the 1st stage of the louse's life, when the female louse places the nit (or louse egg) on the hair strands, The nit is a shell with a louse inside to develop (similar to what happens with the chicken eggs), approximately 7 days after being laid, a tiny, almost transparent baby louse hatches, which is called a nymph.

Nits, Nymphs and Lice
Nits, Nymphs and Lice
  • Nymph, is the stage between the newly born lice from the nit to the adult lice. The nymph goes through 3 transformations in which it increases in size, this phase lasts about 1 week.

  • Adult lice, you can now breed with female and male lice. It is enough for the female to copulate once to be able to lay nits for the rest of her life (approximately 1 month). During this period, female louse lay about 10 nits per day.



Lice in a month, let's do the math...


Knowing the stages that lice go through makes it easier to do the math. Let's imagine that a female louse decides to pay a visit to one of the children at home, how many lice can appear in a month? This is in case we don't realize that she's got head lice if we haven't carried out a treatment.

Nits

Nymphs

Adult Lice

1st Week

​60

1

2nd Week

60

60

1

3rd Week

3660

60

61

4th Week

3.660

3.660

61

5th Week

3.219.600

3.660

3.660

In the 5th week after the visit of a Female Lice we already have several families of lice: 3,219,600 nits (lice eggs), 3,660 nymphs (baby lice) and 3,660 adult lice. The ability they have to reproduce is frightening, so we can imagine the difficulty of some larger families in dealing with lice when they appear!


The best way to avoid lice is to prevent it, which is why at Happy Heads Clinic, in addition to the professional treatment of lice and nits that is 100% natural, safe and effective, we always recommend and advise you on various preventive measures and products.

Visit us and learn more!



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