If bed bugs appear in your home, it is comparable to a real disaster. This is especially true if there are small children in the apartment. After all, it is children under 12 years of age who suffer from bedbug bites in the first place. Instinctively, the bug chooses a victim with thinner skin, so first the symptoms of bites appear in children and women, and only then in men and adolescents (if they all live in an infested room at the same time).
This article is about exactly what bedbug bites look like on a child, what they look like, and how to identify them (instructions for examining body parts). What can a bedbug bite be confused with and its symptoms on the skin of children. How such bites can be dangerous for a baby, how to treat them, what to apply and how to protect them. Additionally, we will talk about what modern medicine believes on this matter.
30 most effective bed bug remedies for 2022
Treatment of bedbug bites
A person practically does not feel the bite itself while it is being committed, because the bug digs in with its proboscis and can suck out the blood in the required amount. As soon as the insect is saturated with blood, it is then that the first unpleasant symptoms begin to appear: itching, burning, and the skin takes on an unaesthetic appearance. How to treat bedbug bites on the human body, and what are the main alternative drugs to reduce the risk of developing serious consequences? We will learn about this in detail in the material.
Read more about how and how to treat bed bug bites in a child in this article.
When and who do bedbugs bite first?
The traditional hunting time for ectoparasites is between 3 and 6 am. This is due to the fact that bedbugs are afraid of daylight. In addition, it is much easier for them to attack a sleeping defenseless person. During the day, only individuals experiencing severe hunger attack people.
First of all, they try to attack children and women. Their skin is much thinner than that of men, which allows pests to easily reach the circulatory system. By the way bedbug bites look, you can understand that their favorite places are the arms, legs, stomach and cheek areas. They also often prefer the lips and eyelids, where the skin is thinnest.
Bedbug bite: how to identify it
Before you begin treatment for an unpleasant manifestation on the skin, you need to make sure what caused such irritation. After all, the bites of these small bugs are similar in many ways to those of ants, mosquitoes and cockroaches. Bed bug bites are practically painless, which is due to the injection of a special anesthetic substance into the wound of the victim. Therefore, at night, when the parasite bites a person, 70% of the time the victim does not notice it until the morning. Only in the morning are the bites of blood-sucking parasites discovered, manifested in the form of itching and redness of the skin. A single skin lesion by such a bloodsucker does not pose any particular danger to humans, which cannot be said about a mass attack.
Bed bug bites can cause a severe allergic reaction in some people, so treatment for bites is mandatory.
After a bite, the skin begins to itch and itch, which is a normal reaction of the body. But doctors do not recommend scratching the bite site, as this can cause blood infection and inflammation of the skin. If a person has an individual intolerance to the substance that the insect sprays into the victim’s body, then the consequences can be fatal if timely assistance is not provided.
Read more about what to do if you are bitten by bedbugs and how to avoid bites in this article.
A bedbug bite can be characterized by the following symptoms:
- Redness of the bite site, which is the formation of a red spot with slight swelling and a small dot in the center.
- The location of the bite may be single, but this is a very rare occurrence; bedbugs often feed in several places on the human body, so the next morning you can find up to 10 red dots from one insect.
- The main places on the body that the insect infects are: the neck, face, inner part of the arms, back, that is, where the skin is thinnest.
- Every day the number of such lesions on the skin may increase, which indicates the presence of a bedbug in the apartment. The photo below shows a view of a bedbug bite.
As soon as you discover unpleasant symptoms of insect bites, you must immediately take measures to destroy the parasites before they multiply.
The most unpleasant consequence of a bug bite is the possibility of infecting a person with various serious diseases: from hepatitis B to tuberculosis. To avoid such unpleasant consequences, after an insect bite, it is necessary to immediately take medical measures. Let’s find out in more detail what the treatment methods for bedbug bites are.
How to protect your child
The best way to combat these parasites is to prevent their occurrence. We bring to your attention five basic steps that will help protect your child and minimize the risk of bedbugs in your apartment.
Inspection of the premises
First of all, it is important to conduct a thorough inspection of your apartment or house. You should figure out how insects can get into your home and where they can hide. The main routes for home bugs to travel are ventilation ducts, where it is recommended to install fine mesh. Any cracks in the wall or floor can be a place for these parasites to live, so we must seal them.
Quarantine
You should avoid purchasing various used furniture. Also, when choosing any goods in the store, you do not need to lose vigilance. Before purchasing, you should carefully inspect a new item, especially if it is a piece of upholstered furniture. It is best to treat it with hot steam or chemicals.
Baby's sleeping place
Your baby's crib is the most important place to inspect and treat for bedbugs. But even if you throw it away and buy a new one, there is no guarantee that the bloodsuckers will not return to you again. All bed seams must be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner and additionally treated with steam. Conventional steam generators will be powerless, so you can use a household hair dryer as an alternative.
Setting traps
If there is a high risk of insects entering your home, you should create as many obstacles as possible for them. This will help contain the bulk of them. We recommend installing special traps, which are containers with a viscous liquid, near the legs of the bed. You can resort to using dry ice, which will attract the insect. Additionally, you can use vinegar as a means to coat the bottom of the bed from the inside or sprinkle the perimeter of the bed with mountain flour (Diatomite). Remember that contact with caustic substances is not at all advisable for children. Remember safety.
Essential oils
This option is distinguished by its safety, since all oils consist of natural ingredients and are non-toxic. You can prepare a special spray consisting of equal amounts of clove, lemongrass and peppermint oils with the addition of frankincense. At the same time, do not forget to check if your child has an allergic reaction to any of these components.
Advice: all aromatic (including vinegar, kerosene) and folk methods of killing bedbugs are essentially repelling insects with a pungent odor. Gives a temporary effect of retreat of the colony (1-5 days) until the individuals adapt to the homemade repellent. Bedbugs are incredibly resistant even to poisons and chemicals, not to mention simple pungent odors. To destroy the entire population of insects in an apartment, it is necessary to use liquid insecticides. These are the most effective remedies for home bugs for 2019-2020: “Xulat Micro”, “Get Total”, “Delta Zone m.k.”, “Lambda Zone m.k.”
Treatment with home remedies
What should you do initially if you find a bite on your body? If this phenomenon causes discomfort, you can initially take a sedative tablet. Sometimes massive bites drive a person to a hysterical state, especially when combined with unpleasant symptoms of itching and burning of the skin. Once you have calmed down, you can begin to treat the bites.
Treatment procedures should begin with washing the skin in warm running water (possibly with laundry soap), which will reduce the symptoms of itching and scabies. Next, you can use the following types of available tools:
- Ice. After washing the bedbug bite area, apply a piece of ice or something cold to it. Ice will help relieve swelling and freeze the wound, which will speed up the healing process.
- Table vinegar. You can treat itching with vinegar, which every housewife has in her arsenal. You need to moisten clean gauze or cloth with vinegar, and then rub the skin where it was damaged by insects.
- Black or green tea. It is necessary to brew black or green tea as strong as possible, then soak gauze in it and apply it to the site of the bug bite. Such compresses help relieve swelling and relieve symptoms of itching.
- Medical alcohol. Surely everyone has a bottle of ethyl alcohol in their first aid kit, which needs to be used to treat the affected areas of the body. A one-time treatment of the skin is enough to avoid infection from entering the wound. When using alcohol, signs of burning may be felt, which is normal.
- Tincture of calendula or propolis. Wounds can be treated with tinctures of medicinal herbs, but be careful, as symptoms of burning skin are possible.
- Soda solution. If there is no alcohol in the kitchen, then soda can be used. First you need to prepare a soda solution, which you can use to moisten the affected areas of the skin 2 times a day.
This is a list of the main ways by which you can quickly and effectively get rid of unpleasant symptoms after a bedbug bite.
