Go on, admit it—you don’t believe in fairy godmothers, do you? They only exist in Disney films, don’t they? Well the remarkable results of recent US research might help to change things, but for “fairy godmother” substitute home nurse or health visitor. A study that began over 20 years ago (Davis Olds and colleagues.Journal of the American Medical Association1998;280:1238–44) has shown that home visiting by nurses during pregnancy and the child’s first two years can reduce antisocial behaviour at adolescence in the children of disadvantaged families. Four hundred pregnant women with no previous …