It’s usually sold as 100 mg tablets, and one of these a day for a school-aged child would be safe to try. Several websites recommend this, but the few studies I could find showed that it wasn’t effective. What about LeeAnn’s question about vitamin B 1? Also known as thiamine, this vitamin is very safe to give to your children-it’s water-soluble, meaning that excessive amounts will come out in the urine. Other products, including a variety of botanical ingredients, work for only a very short duration, or not at all. These have no advantage over DEET, but some families prefer them because of their more pleasant smell and feel. Two other agents that are effective insect repellants are picaridin (the active ingredient in Cutter Advance) and oil of lemon eucalyptus. Children who have used DEET (or any other insect repellant) should take a bath or shower at the end of the day. Use a concentration of about 10%, which provides effective protection for about two hours. Though rare allergies are always possible with any product applied to the skin, almost all children do fine with DEET. This chemical has been used for decades as an insect repellant and is very safe. The best-studied and most commonly available active ingredient is DEET. A T-shirt is better than a tank top, and a tank top is better than no shirt at all! Though kids won’t want to wear long pants in the summer, keep in mind that skin covered with clothing is protected from biting insects. Light colored clothing is less attractive to mosquitoes. So reducing the mosquito population in your own yard can really help.īiting mosquitoes are most active at dusk, so that’s the most important time to be vigilant with your prevention techniques. Mosquitoes are “home-bodies”-they don’t typically wander far from their place of birth. Avoid allowing gutters or drainage pipes to hold water. Empty any containers of standing water, including tires, empty flowerpots, or birdbaths. Try to keep your local mosquito population under control by making it more difficult for the insects to breed. The itchy bites can be scratched open by children, leading to scabbing, scarring, and the skin infection impetigo. Though uncommon, serious diseases such as West Nile Encephalitis and dengue fever can be spread by mosquito bites in the USA. Not the teachers.Īnyway: mosquitoes are more than an itchy nuisance. I remember a trip to the Florida Everglades as a child with school-surrounded by mosquitoes, alligators, and miles of swamp, our teachers told us that mosquitoes are a vital part of the food chain, and essential to the ecosystem. She wants to know, “Does taking Vitamin B1 really help keep mosquitoes from biting? How much is safe for children?” Summer has barely begun, and LeeAnn has already had enough of mosquitoes.
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