One of the ghastly facts of family life is that children are prone to an invasion of threadworms. Jane Bartlett on the unsavoury business of getting rid of them

When you become a parent, it's unlikely you envisioned creeping into your child's room in the middle of the night to inspect their bottom with a torch. It's the sort of activity that might alert social workers, were it not for the fact that it has a very practical purpose. Catching worms. Children are prone to an invasion of threadworms or pinworm, a parasite, which resembles a piece of dental floss, and sets up home in the intestine. Up to 30% of children are, periodically, infected by them in their early years, and vigorous bottom itching is the embarrassing symptom.

How do they get there?

Infection starts when microscopic eggs are swallowed (or inhaled before swallowing). They travel to the dark, airless intestine where they hatch into tiny worms up to one centimetre long. They survive there undetected for up to four glorious weeks, breeding. The male, having served his biological purpose, is then banished to the stools and dies. Meanwhile, the female wiggles out of the anus, when the host is still, usually at night, and lays thousands of sticky eggs around the back passage. In girls, these might also be laid around and inside the vagina or urethra (front passage). The female then dies, too. Tragic really.

This is when the trouble begins. While the eggs are sticky they itch, so children can get them on their fingers and re-infect themselves or pass the worm onto others. Eggs tend to rub onto bedclothes, toilet seats, towels, toys and door handles. Horror of horrors, when they lose their stickiness they float through the air, settling as dust on food, toothbrushes and generally round about.

Any public environment, where people drop their pants, is a contender for threadworm dust, especially if the air is cool and moist. In such conditions, the eggs can remain infectious for six to eight weeks. Newly hatched worms can also live around the host’s anus for four hours, and find their way back into the intestine to begin the cycle again.

Are they harmful?

Unpleasant? Yes. Harmful? Not really. Your child might get a sore anus from all that nocturnal egg laying and scratching, although it’s worth noting that many threadworm victims do not itch at all, and up to 90% of those infected don’t know they have them. Threadworms don’t cause illness but they can cause urinary tract infections. A child might also start bed wetting, when they had previously been dry. In about 20% of cases, the worms disappear on their own.

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Worming away