Home visits for preterm babies help breastfeeding, and more intensive visits with kangaroo care may lower mortality

The edition in brief

A Cochrane review of 35 randomised trials (28 contributing data; 12,021 infants) found that home visits after discharge for preterm and low-birthweight infants likely increase breastfeeding at six months (RR 1.26, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.37) with little to no effect on cognitive or motor development or growth, and very uncertain effects on mortality. Where visits already exist, a more intensive package with community-initiated kangaroo mother care likely reduced mortality at 6 months (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.60 to 0.93, one large study of 8,402 infants), and about 70% of participants in that comparison came from one large Indian study. An American Family Physician review, dated August, covers Crohn's disease: faecal calprotectin helps decide whether ileocolonoscopy and imaging are needed, patients should be checked for iron, vitamin D, folate and vitamin B12 deficiency, and colonoscopy is commonly advised 8 years after symptom onset. A cross-sectional validation of an AI-scored tablet drawing task in 111 older adults reported an area under the curve of 0.868 for distinguishing Alzheimer's disease from controls, with 83.6% sensitivity and 75.0% specificity at its best cut-off; it is a small single-study result. A 50-person pilot found a point-of-care analyser gave blood glucose, triglyceride and HDL readings in reasonable agreement with a laboratory. A qualitative study described how group visits for chronic pain provide four kinds of social support. The pearl covers reversible contributors before a cognitive screen.