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Bedbugs are small flat parasitic insects that feed slowly on the blood of people and animals while they sleep. Reddish brown in colour, wingless range from 1mm to 7mm and can live several months without a blood meal. 1
Signs of Infestation:
- If you wake up with an itchy area you didn’t have when you went to sleep
- Blood stains on your sheets or pillowcases
- Dark or ruby spots of bedbug excrements on sheets and mattresses, bedclothes, and walls
- Bedbugs’ faecal matter may be found in furniture, traveling, bags, cracking in walls, etc...
- An offensive musty odour from the bug’s scent glands (often described as smelling similar to coriander)
Management: 1,2,3
- Avoid scratching and apply antiseptic creams or lotions and use antihistamines
- Clean bedding, linens, curtains, and clothing in hot water and dry them at the highest dryer setting
- Place stuffed animals, shoes and other items that can’t be washed in the dryer and run on high for 30 min
- Use a stiff brush to scrub mattresses to remove bedbugs and their eggs before vacuuming
- Vacuum your child’s bed and surrounding area frequently, place vacuum bag immediately outdoors
- Encase mattresses with a tightly leaven zipped cover. Bedbugs may live up for a year without feeding, so keep the cover on your mattress for at least a year.
- Repair cracks with plaster and glue down peeling wallpaper to get rid of places bedbugs hide
- Chemical treatment, better seek the help if professionals.
Dr. Monique Zgheib
Pediatrician
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