PONE-D-19-14831

Effect of exclusive breastfeeding cessation time on childhood morbidity and adverse nutritional outcomes in Ethiopia: Analysis of the demographic and health surveys

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr Dabere Nigatu,

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: INTRODUCTION:

- Page 5, line 77-78: support the sentence "Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, such studies are lacking in Ethiopia" with a reference.

METHOD:

section STUDY DESIGN AND SETTINGS:

- Page 6, line 91-92:

1) what is meant by enumeration area and population and housing census?

2) why were these two chosen as a cluster?

- Page 6, line 93-96:

1) If EA is a cluster and urban and rural areas are selected based on EA, then urban and rural are sub-clusters? Define all clusters better.

2) what is the connection between the first and second sampling phase? why have they been divided in this way?

3) “a fixed number of households per cluster were selected”, which clusters does it refer to? urban and rural area or AE and PHC, or all 4?

4)Which is the systematic random sampling technique?

section OUTCOME VARIABLES MEASUREMENT:

-Page 7, line 122-126: How was “less than-2 standard deviation” defined as a limit?

-Page 7, line 119,126,127:Did the children included in the study have both variables (at least one nutritional and at least one morbidity) or only the nutritional variable and only the morbidity variable?

RESULTS:

section SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS

-Page 9-11, Table 1: In the "Exposure variables measurement" section the following variables were considered which are not present in table 1: type of cooking fuel; sanitation facility; source of drinking water; disposal of child's stools when not using toilet. How were they considered in the study?

Reviewer #2: This paper is quite interesting and focuses its attention on a very important topic. Nevertheless, this study presents significant limitations, which are however well described and discussed in "Methods" and "Discussion".

- Table 1: data about household wealth status are presented. Further explanation in the text about this variable might be important.

- Table 3 and 4: for easier reading, I suggest to add p values to COR/AOR (95% CI) for each variable.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Cecilia De Flora

Reviewer #2: No

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Effect of exclusive breastfeeding cessation time on childhood morbidity and adverse nutritional outcomes in Ethiopia: Analysis of the demographic and health surveys

PONE-D-19-14831R1

Dear Dr.Dabere Nigatu ,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

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With kind regards,

Massimo Ciccozzi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: