PONE-D-21-11913

The practice of early mother-newborn skin-to-skin contact after delivery of healthy term neonate and associated factors among health care providers at health facilities of Southwestern Oromia, Ethiopia 2017.

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dirirsa 

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. The paper needs major revision.

Please submit your revised manuscript by 16 September 2021. 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:

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• 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,

Prof Sajid Soofi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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. Please amend your current ethics statement to address the following concerns: Please explain why written consent was not obtained, how you recorded/documented participant consent, and if the ethics committees/IRBs approved this consent procedure.

3. Please include additional information regarding the checklist and questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information. If the original language is written in non-Latin characters, for example Amharic, Chinese, or Korean, please use a file format that ensures these characters are visible.

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“The entire necessary costs (material and humanitarian) for the study were covered by Ethio-Canada MCH project funded this study.”

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

This is an interesting study focusing on the practice of skin-to-skin contact of term neonates. Please review the comments and revise the paper.

[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

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: • How did you measure the practice? Relevant results should be stated

• Explain more about tools and Validity and reliability of the tools

• Remove results (For example (P=0.002, AOR=4, CI=1.7, 10…) from the discussion section

• You can use the following articles in the introduction and discussion sections

1. Karimi FZ, Miri HH, Khadivzadeh T, Maleki-Saghooni N. The effect of mother-infant skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth on exclusive breastfeeding: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the Turkish German Gynecological Association. 2020 Mar;21(1):46.

2. Karimi FZ, MIRI HH, Salehian M, Khadivzadeh T, Bakhshi M. The Effect of Mother-Infant Skin to Skin Contact after Birth on Third Stage of Labor: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Iranian journal of public health. 2019 Apr;48(4):612.

3. Karimi A, Bagheri S, Khadivzadeh T, Mirzaii Najmabadi Kh. The Effect of an Interventional Program, Based on the Theory of Ethology, on Breastfeeding Competence of Infants. Iranian Journal of Neonatology 2014; 5(3): 10-12.

4. Karimi A, khadivzadeh T, Bagheri S. Effect of immediate and continuous mother- infant skin to skin contact on breastfeeding selfefficacy of primiparous women. Women and birth 2014; 27:37-40.

5. Karimi FZ, Khadivzadeh T, Saeidi M, Bagheri S. The Effect of Kangaroo Mother Care Immediately after Delivery on Mother-infant Attachment and on Maternal Anxiety about the Baby 3- Months after Delivery: a Randomized Controlled Trial. Int J Pediatr 2016; 4(9): 3561-70

6. Karimi A, Tara F, Khadivzadeh T, Aghamohammadian Sharbaf HR. The Effect of Skin to Skin Contact Immediately after Delivery on the Maternal Attachment and Anxiety Regarding Infant. The Iranian Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Infertility 2013; 16(67): 7-15.

7. Karimi FZ, Bagheri S, Tara F, Khadivzadeh T, Mousavi Bazaz SM. Effect of Kangaroo Mother Care on breastfeeding self-efficacy in primiparous women, 3 month after child birth. The Iranian Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Infertility 2014; 17(120): 1-8.

8. Khadivzadeh T, Karimi FZ, Tara F, Bagheri S. The Effect of Postpartum Mother– Infant Skin-to-Skin Contact on Exclusive Breastfeeding In neonatal period: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Int J Pediatr 2016; 4(5): 5409-17.

9. Khadivzadeh, T., Karimi, F., Tara, F. Effects of early mother-neonate skin-to-skin contact on the duration of the third stage of labor: A randomized clinical trial. The Iranian Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Infertility, 2018; 21(2): 23-29

10. Karimi FZ, Sadeghi R, Maleki-Saghooni N, Khadivzadeh T. The effect of mother-infant skin to skin contact on success and duration of first breastfeeding: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Taiwanese Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2019 Jan 1; 58(1):1-9.

Reviewer #2: General: This is an interesting study that focus on the practice of skin to skin contact post delivery among new mothers in Ethiopia.

Introduction: Although the authors mentioned about Ethiopia's maternal care. However, the authors should elaborate on the national policy and maternal care services. The world prevalence is not very important in this case; rather the reader would be more interested on Ethiopia's national policy on maternal delivery and care; as well as the maternity services / labour services available. Why are 90% of birth occuring at home? is that cultural practice or due to insufficient maternity hospital? transport or distance to hospital? Suggest to focus solely on Ethiopia, describing its maternal healthcare services, national policy, home birth rate and why it is so prevalent and then on the practices of skin-to-skin contact post delivery in Ethiopia; Also, to add if other similar studies have been done in Ethiopia and what are the current known findings (if any)

Statement of the problem: paragraph 5 - this paragraph is not clear in terms of what the authors are saying. Please reword the sentences.

Method: please explain why convenience sampling was applied? Also, the method states that pre-testing was done. What kind of pre-testing? was reliability of the questiionnaire measured? What was the result of the pre-testing? In data collection, it stated that the healthcare providers were unaware they were being observed however, consent was taken before they were recruited so, how was that achieved? Please explain.

Results: Please check table 3 maternal illness if your significance level is correct?

Discussion: could be better written at the end to tally all the four factors and how it can be used to improve the skin to skin practice in Ethiopia.

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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

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.

PONE-D-21-11913R1The Practice of early mother-newborn skin-to-skin contact after delivery of healthy term neonate and associated factors among health care providers at health facilities of Southwestern Ethiopia: A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dejene Edosa Dirirsa,

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 address MINOR comments by the reviewers 

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by 30 Jan 2022. 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: https://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,

Sajid Bashir Soofi

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 point by point some minor comments by the reviewer

[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: All comments have been addressed

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 Response)

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: (No Response)

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: The title and objective is not consistent with the results of the article

Items such as maternal factors are mentioned in the results that are not mentioned in the title or objective

The number of references is low, Suggested articles for use in this manuscript

1. Karimi FZ, Sadeghi R, Maleki-Saghooni N, Khadivzadeh T. The effect of mother-infant skin to skin contact on success and duration of first breastfeeding: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Taiwanese Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2019 Jan 1; 58(1):1-9.

2. Karimi FZ, MIRI HH, Salehian M, Khadivzadeh T, Bakhshi M. The Effect of Mother-Infant Skin to Skin Contact after Birth on Third Stage of Labor: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Iranian journal of public health. 2019 Apr;48(4):612.

3. karimi FZ, Miri HH, Khadivzadeh T, Maleki-Saghooni N. The effect of mother-infant skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth on exclusive breastfeeding: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the Turkish German Gynecological Association. 2020 Mar;21(1):46

4. Karimi A, Bagheri S, Khadivzadeh T, Mirzaii Najmabadi Kh. The Effect of an Interventional Program, Based on the Theory of Ethology, on Breastfeeding Competence of Infants. Iranian Journal of Neonatology 2014; 5(3): 10-12.

5. Karimi FZ, Khadivzadeh T, Saeidi M, Bagheri S. The Effect of Kangaroo Mother Care Immediately after Delivery on Mother-infant Attachment and on Maternal Anxiety about the Baby 3- Months after Delivery: a Randomized Controlled Trial. Int J Pediatr 2016; 4(9): 3561-70

6. Karimi A, Tara F, Khadivzadeh T, Aghamohammadian Sharbaf HR. The Effect of Skin to Skin Contact Immediately after Delivery on the Maternal Attachment and Anxiety Regarding Infant. The Iranian Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Infertility 2013; 16(67): 7-15.

7. Karimi FZ, Bagheri S, Tara F, Khadivzadeh T, Mousavi Bazaz SM. Effect of Kangaroo Mother Care on breastfeeding self-efficacy in primiparous women, 3 month after child birth. The Iranian Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Infertility 2014; 17(120): 1-8.

8. Khadivzadeh T, Karimi FZ, Tara F, Bagheri S. The Effect of Postpartum Mother– Infant Skin-to-Skin Contact on Exclusive Breastfeeding In neonatal period: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Int J Pediatr 2016; 4(5): 5409-17.

9. Khadivzadeh, T., Karimi, F., Tara, F. Effects of early mother-neonate skin-to-skin contact on the duration of the third stage of labor: A randomized clinical trial. The Iranian Journal of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Infertility, 2018; 21(2): 23-29

Reviewer #2: There are several gramatical error of the manuscript, especially in the abstract section that may benefit from copyediting. Thank you.

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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.

PONE-D-21-11913R2The Practice of early mother-newborn skin-to-skin contact after delivery of healthy term neonate and associated factors among health care professionals at health facilities of Southwestern Oromia, Ethiopia: A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dirirsa,

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.

Specifically, we require that the article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. We noted multiple language issues, especially in Abstract. Please have your manuscript carefully copyedited and correct any language errors this time In addition, we note that one or more reviewers has recommended that you cite specific previously published works. As always, we recommend that you please review and evaluate the requested works to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. It is not a requirement to cite these works. For instance, we feel that the suggested references 2,5,6,7,8, and 12 are not so relevant and you are optional to cite them. Furthermore, We note that you have indicated that “All relevant data are within the manuscript”. However, members of the editorial team have assessed the provided data and are concerned that the data provided do not meet our expectations for minimal datasets. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (see (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability). For example, authors should submit the following data:

> The values behind the means, standard deviations and other measures reported;

> The values used to build graphs;

> The points extracted from images for analysis.

Please ensure that you have provided a datafile to meet these requirements with your manuscript.

Finally, we noted the following conflicted data statements:

-On the submission details page: "No - some restrictions will apply" and "All relevant data are within the manuscript"

-In the manuscript: "The data used or analyzed throughout the current study will be obtained up on request from the corresponding author and coauthors." Please comment on this and keep your data statements consistent.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 29 2022 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: https://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,

Jianhong Zhou

Staff 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.

[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: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

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: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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: Yes

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: Yes

**********

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: 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 #2: Dear Author, thank you for preparing the corrections. Improvements have been made to the manuscript and is satisfactory. All comments of the reviewers were answered. Well done!

**********

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: Yes: Assoc. Prof Dr F Ariffin

**********

[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.

The Practice of early mother-newborn skin-to-skin contact after delivery of healthy term neonate and associated factors among health care professionals at health facilities of Southwestern Oromia, Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study

PONE-D-21-11913R3

Dear Dr. Dirirsa,

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.

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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,

Jianhong Zhou

Staff Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments : We still noted multiple language issues. Please pay attention to the Introduction section and have your whole manuscript carefully copyedited and correct any language errors this time.

Reviewers' comments: