Infant and young child feeding practice among mothers of children age 6 to 23 months in Debrelibanos district, North Showa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia

Mathewos Mekonnen; Tadele Kinati; Kumera Bekele; Bikila Tesfa; Dejene Hailu; Kemal Jemal

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0257758

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 5, 2020
19 Apr 2021 Decision Letter - Julia Dratva, Editor PONE-D-20-34804 Infant and Young Child Feeding Practice among Mothers with Children age between 6 to 23 Months at Debrelibanos District, North Showa, Oromia Ethiopia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gemmechu, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, by one external reviewer and the academic editor, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 03 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Julia Dratva Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors The manuscript touches on an important topic Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) in Ethopia. It investigates the prevalence of appropriate parctice and factors associated with appropriate practice to improve communication and practice in future. While the paper presents interesting results and compares them with former research on the topic, the results are insufficiently presented and the comaprisons lack information on the former studies. Overall, the statistical methods can be presented better, to allow readers to interprete results better. The paper needs an English editing and a major revision. Specific points: Some sentences are not understandable and can be misinterpreted, e.g. "Mothers who were critically ill and not volunteer to participate in the study were excluded." Are these 2 exclusion criteria or one, mothers critically ill not volonteering.... In general non-participation is not an exclusion criterium. Authors should explain if the district chosen to study IYCF is representative of the country as a whole and if the results are generalizable. 24 hour recall is mentioned among the operational definitions. It would be worthwhile to present the method in the data colelciton part and address how these data were analyzed. Appropriate IYCF practices - is the threshold a standard threshold - no reference was cited. Please elaborate. Similarly, please define "sufficient knowledge" when was it considered sufficient. Statistical methods: please add the confounding factors used in the multivariate regression analyses, or was this rather a explorative approach with all co-variates adjusting each other? Discussion: Authors prsent other studies on IYCF - however only vaguely refer to explanations for differences - such as might be due to socio-economic differences. This is not satisfying for the readers. Elaborate. the two least well practiced recommendations (diversity in foods, bottle-feeding) merit more discussion, also due to the question of availability/access to diverse foods. In this case, education on IYCF success seem limeted. The discussion should also include a section on generalizability. Minor points: Tbl. 1: familiy income - <1000 is twice Gender bias, to me this does not seem to be a bias, but a gender difference in feeding practices. There is some literature on the topic and hypothesis on the reasons for this difference. Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services. If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free. Upon resubmission, please provide the following: The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a supporting information file) A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new manuscript file) 3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ 4. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Tadele Kinati, Kumera Bekele, Bikila Tesfa, Dejene Hailu, and Kemal Jemal. 5. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: I found that title of the manuscript was very interesting. However, the whole body of the manuscript was written in poor English. Even the language in the abstract seems a zero-draft document. The discussion is very shallow which leads to shallow conclusion. The binary and multivariate analysis should have been separately presented. Nothing was stated on how the candidate variables for the multivariate analysis were selected. What's the justification behind including all the 11 kebeles of the district? In general, this manuscript needs critical revision. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r001
Revision 1
3 Jun 2021 Author Response Journal Requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Reply: Thank you for the guidance, the PLOS ONE’s style requirement have been incorporated accordingly in all sections. 2. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services. If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free. Upon resubmission, please provide the following: • The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript • A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a supporting information file) • A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new manuscript file) Reply: Based on your advices the whole manuscript has been copy edited thoroughly for language usage, spelling and grammar by one of our colleagues not listed as author, who is expert in English. 3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ Reply: The corresponding author has already ORCID iD (0000-0002-3794-7818) 4. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Tadele Kinati, Kumera Bekele, Bikila Tesfa, Dejene Hailu, and Kemal Jemal. Reply: The manuscript submission data has been amended accordingly 5. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Reply: Modified accordingly Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors The manuscript touches on an important topic Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) in Ethopia. It investigates the prevalence of appropriate parctice and factors associated with appropriate practice to improve communication and practice in future. While the paper presents interesting results and compares them with former research on the topic, the results are insufficiently presented and the comaprisons lack information on the former studies. Overall, the statistical methods can be presented better, to allow readers to interprete results better. The paper needs an English editing and a major revision. Reply: The result has been sufficiently presented and comparison on previous studies have been made thoroughly. The methodology has been presented in the better way so that it can be understood easily by reader. The language is copy edited Specific points: Some sentences are not understandable and can be misinterpreted, e.g. "Mothers who were critically ill and not volunteer to participate in the study were excluded." Are these 2 exclusion criteria or one, mothers critically ill not volonteering.... In general non-participation is not an exclusion criterium. Reply: Modification has been made accordingly Authors should explain if the district chosen to study IYCF is representative of the country as a whole and if the results are generalizable. Reply: The issue of generatability has been discussed generously as limitation 24 hour recall is mentioned among the operational definitions. It would be worthwhile to present the method in the data colelciton part and address how these data were analyzed. Reply: Modification has been made by authors accordingly Appropriate IYCF practices - is the threshold a standard threshold - no reference was cited. Please elaborate. Similarly, please define "sufficient knowledge" when was it considered sufficient. Reply: Modifications have been made by authors accordingly Statistical methods: please add the confounding factors used in the multivariate regression analyses, or was this rather a explorative approach with all co-variates adjusting each other? Reply: The P value ≤0.25 was taken as a cut-off point to select eligible variables for the multiple logistic regression analysis to control for potential confounders. Discussion: Authors present other studies on IYCF - however only vaguely refer to explanations for differences - such as might be due to socio-economic differences. This is not satisfying for the readers. Elaborate. the two least well practiced recommendations (diversity in foods, bottle-feeding) merit more discussion, also due to the question of availability/access to diverse foods. In this case, education on IYCF success seem limeted. The discussion should also include a section on generalizability. Reply: All comments raised in the discussion part have been addressed accordingly. Minor points: Tbl. 1: familiy income - <1000 is twice Reply: Sorry for the incontinence, the second one has been removed. Gender bias, to me this does not seem to be a bias, but a gender difference in feeding practices. There is some literature on the topic and hypothesis on the reasons for this difference. Reply: authors have reviewed other literatures and modified accordingly. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Partly ________________________________________ 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reply: The procedure for selecting the candidate variables for the multivariate analysis has been stated. ________________________________________ 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reply: We have included the minimal data set in the manuscript as a separate attachment called ‘supporting information. ________________________________________ 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reply: The whole manuscript has been copy edited thoroughly for language usage, spelling and grammar by colleague who is expert in English. ________________________________________ 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: I found that title of the manuscript was very interesting. However, the whole body of the manuscript was written in poor English. Even the language in the abstract seems a zero-draft document. The discussion is very shallow which leads to shallow conclusion. The binary and multivariate analysis should have been separately presented. Nothing was stated on how the candidate variables for the multivariate analysis were selected. What's the justification behind including all the 11 kebeles of the district? In general, this manuscript needs critical revision. Reply: Thank you for your constructive comments. The authors have taken all the raised issues and reacted accordingly. The whole manuscript has been copy edited thoroughly for language usage, spelling and grammar by colleague who is expert in English. Literature review has been made and discussed with the finding of this study in detail. Thus, sound conclusion has been drawn. The P value ≤0.25 was taken as a cut-off point to select eligible variables for the multiple logistic regression analysis to control for potential confounders Due to the small number of kebeles in the district, all of them were considered. In general, the manuscript has been critically revised by authors ________________________________________ 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. ________________________________________ In compliance with data protection regulations, you may request that we remove your personal registration details at any time. (Remove my information/details). Please contact the publication office if you have any questions. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r002
22 Jul 2021 Decision Letter - Julia Dratva, Editor PONE-D-20-34804R1 Infant and Young Child Feeding Practice among Mothers with Children age between 6 to 23 Months at Debrelibanos District, North Showa, Oromia Ethiopia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Gemmechu, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 05 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Julia Dratva Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Please address the last points raised by the reviewers. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: It is appreciated that almost all the raised issues are now addressed except the following few concerns. 1. The authors have also responded that the minimal dataset is separately attached as ‘supporting information. However the dataset underlying the findings in the manuscript is still not accessible if I am not mistaken. 2. Some statements still need minor editions. For example, something is wrong in the statement written as, "In this study, mothers who made ANC follow up during pregnancy were statistically significant with appropriate IYCF practices." I think this should be rephrased in a way that the information is clearly presented. Reviewer #2: The manuscript is about IYCF practices and their associated factors. In general the manuscript needs extensive language and grammar editing. In the introduction section, why isn't 2016 EDHS used to give some background ? In the results section, table 4 (binary and multivariate regression analysis) is not easy to read/understand, it would be better to present results in two tables and use no more than one page per table. In the discussion section, the binary and multivariate analysis results need to be discussed with more depth. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r003
Revision 2
28 Jul 2021 Author Response Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Please address the last points raised by the reviewers. Reply: The points that had been raised by reviewers have been addressed accordingly. 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes Reply for Reviewer #1: We have included the additional data set in the manuscript as a separate attachment called ‘supporting information’ as S1 and S2 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No Reply for Reviewer #2: The whole manuscript has been edited thoroughly for language usage, spelling and grammar. 6. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: It is appreciated that almost all the raised issues are now addressed except the following few concerns. 1. The authors have also responded that the minimal dataset is separately attached as ‘supporting information. However the dataset underlying the findings in the manuscript is still not accessible if I am not mistaken. 2. Some statements still need minor editions. For example, something is wrong in the statement written as, "In this study, mothers who made ANC follow up during pregnancy were statistically significant with appropriate IYCF practices." I think this should be rephrased in a way that the information is clearly presented. Reviewer #2: The manuscript is about IYCF practices and their associated factors. In general the manuscript needs extensive language and grammar editing. In the introduction section, why isn't 2016 EDHS used to give some background ? In the results section, table 4 (binary and multivariate regression analysis) is not easy to read/understand, it would be better to present results in two tables and use no more than one page per table. In the discussion section, the binary and multivariate analysis results need to be discussed with more depth. Reply for Reviewer #1: Thank you for your constructive comments. We have included the additional data set in the manuscript as a separate attachment called ‘supporting information’ i.e. S2. Authors have also edited statements that need editions so that it can be clearly understood by readers clearly. Replay for Reviewer #2: Thank you for taking the time to give your valuable feedback. To address the concerns identified, the entire manuscript has been thoroughly edited for language usage, spelling, and grammar. Secondly, one paragraph in the introductory section has been dedicated to providing some background information utilizing the 2016 EDHS. Thirdly, the authors improved the design and format of Table 4 in the results section to make it more understandable.Finally, the authors have added depth the discussion of multivariate analysis in the discussion section. However, related to binary analysis, it was already adjusted after considering all variables with P-value ≤0.25 in binary analysis for the multivariate logistic regression analysis to control for potential confounders. Thank you once again for your constructive comments! ________________________________________ Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r004
31 Aug 2021 Decision Letter - Julia Dratva, Editor PONE-D-20-34804R2 Infant and young child feeding practice among mothers of children age 6 to 23 months in Debrelibanos district, North Showa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Mekonnen, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 15 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Julia Dratva Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): The paper has largely improved. Thank you for providing another revision. Please address the following points: 1. There seems to be a misunderstanding with regard to "data availability" - the authors added supplemental material S1 and S2 which are actually questionnaires/ questionnaire items used in the study. Data availability refers to the data being available on a data server or such. Please address, if it is possible or foreseen to publish the data once the paper is published. If not, please explain. Please see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability 2. The first paragraph of the discussion is mainly a repetition of results already found in the result section even with percentages. Please rewrite the first paragraph summing up the main results respectively the main insights, without this detail. You can of course repeat results in the discussion, when you put them into comparison with literature or when interpreting them. 3. Table 4: please separate COR/AOR values from the CI values: 12.859(6.135,26.955) => 12.859 (6.135,26.955) and provide the same number of digtis after the comma for all values. Add defintion of COR and AOR to the legend. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r005
Revision 3
6 Sep 2021 Author Response 1. There seems to be a misunderstanding with regard to "data availability" - the authors added supplemental material S1 and S2 which are actually questionnaires/ questionnaire items used in the study. Data availability refers to the data being available on a data server or such. Please address, if it is possible or foreseen to publish the data once the paper is published. If not, please explain. Please see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability Reply: Thank you for your constructive comment. Authors have now added Data Set used in the study as “S1 Data (SAV)” in addition to questionaries used in the study which has been submitted as “S 1 File (DOCX)” under title “Supporting information” right after Conclusion in manuscript. All relevant data are declared to be within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files during submission process. 2. The first paragraph of the discussion is mainly a repetition of results already found in the result section even with percentages. Please rewrite the first paragraph summing up the main results respectively the main insights, without this detail. You can of course repeat results in the discussion, when you put them into comparison with literature or when interpreting them. Reply: Modification has been made accordingly. 3. Table 4: please separate COR/AOR values from the CI values: 12.859(6.135,26.955) => 12.859 (6.135,26.955) and provide the same number of digits after the comma for all values. Add definition of COR and AOR to the legend. Reply: Modification has been made accordingly. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r006
10 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Julia Dratva, Editor Infant and young child feeding practice among mothers of children age 6 to 23 months in Debrelibanos district, North Showa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia PONE-D-20-34804R3 Dear Dr. Mekonnen, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Julia Dratva Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for the revision of your paper and provision of the data used in this mansucript. The journal will need to assess if this format is correct. I cannot. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r007
Formally Accepted
16 Sep 2021 Acceptance Letter - Julia Dratva, Editor PONE-D-20-34804R3 Infant and young child feeding practice among mothers of children age 6 to 23 months in Debrelibanos district, North Showa zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia Dear Dr. Mekonnen: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Julia Dratva Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257758.r008

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