Ransjo‐Arvidson 1998.

Study characteristics
Methods	Randomised controlled trial carried out in the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia Duration of the study: 2 year and 10 month period from May 1989 to February 1992.
Participants	A total of 408 mothers who had a normal delivery and gave birth to a healthy term infant. Inclusion criteria: (1) The labour was assessed as“normal” by the attending midwife; gestational age 37–42 weeks, singleton birth, spontaneous vaginal delivery, vertex presentation, Apgar score > 8 points at 1 minute after birth, no visible malformations of the newborn, and mother and newborn assessed by the midwife as being "healthy". Exclusion criteria: none.
Interventions	Home visit Group A (n = 208): (Initiation: > 48 hours, Duration: ≥ 3 weeks, Intensity: ≥ 1/week) Mother/infant dyads who were visited by a midwife in their homes at days 3, 7, 28, and 42 after delivery. Home visit Group B (n = 200): Initiation: > 48 hours, Duration: < 3 week, Intensity: < 1/week). Mother/infant dyads who were only visited at day 42 after delivery.
Outcomes	(1) Maternal morbidity (abdominal pain, body pain, fever, excessive bleeding, pain from broken suture line, cough and other) (engorged breast, broken episiotomy, offensive lochia, hypertension, fever 37.6+, other). (2) Infant mortality. Infant morbidity (cord infection, eye discharge, cough and/or cold, skin infection, baby warm or cold, other) at 42 days (end of puerperium) iInfected cord, infected eyes, acute respiratory infection, skin infection, fever 37.6+, other).
Notes	The study was carried out in a developing country. Dates of study: between May 1989 and February 1992. Funding sources: the Swedish Agency for Research Collaboration with Developing Countries (SAREC), the Norwegian Aid Development (NORAD), the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Zambia, University Teaching Hospital (UTH), Lusaka, School of Medicine, University of Zambia (UNZA) and Stockholm University College of Health Sciences. Declarations of interest: unclear by no information
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not described well. On defined days of week 6 women were selected at random for participation. 3 women were allocated to each group.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not described.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Not feasible.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Data collection instruments were tested for reliability by an independent research midwife, but the blinding is not clear.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	172 (86%) of the mothers and infants in Group A, 168 (84%) in Group B attended the postnatal clinic after 42 days.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	Primary outcome was not pre‐defined in the methods.
Other bias	High risk	Much of the analysis related to the intervention group only and there may have been risk of response bias as midwives asked women about their health as part of the intervention; women in the intervention group were asked repeatedly to identify health problems. Publication of findings was more than 6 years after completion of the trial.