PONE-D-24-33587The Perspectives of Prenatal Breastfeeding Educational Classes in Ireland and Their Influence on The Mother’s Decision to Breastfeed: A Qualitative StudyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Grealish,

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Thank you for your submission. To improve the reporting of your qualitative study, please follow the COREQ 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups. Kindly revise the manuscript accordingly and attach the completed checklist with your resubmission.​

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PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

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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

Reviewer #3: No

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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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: The manuscript is interesting, comprehensive and well written.

Authors have followed the COREQ guidelines. However, authors need to explain why they did not try to comply with saturation of data? Is there any comment?

Other than that, the exclusion criterias were not the antonym of the inclusion criteria.

The length of the manuscript should be considered

Reviewer #2: Well done. Although this could benefit from a substantial cut to reduce word count, as it is thorough, the qualitative methods and analysis employed were rigorous and adequately described. I have suggested a few minor revisions.

Reviewer #3: Dear Author

The presented study is commendable and valuable. However, I have significant concerns. I hope the suggestions will help improve the quality of the article.

My comments on the manuscript are as follows:

The title needs modification.

I suggest removing the phrase "and their influence on the mothers decision to breastfeed".

This statement is quantitative in nature and is not suitable for the type of study, and on the other hand, according to the nature of the findings, it is not possible to achieve this goal.

Abstract

- Findings: In addition to the findings, conclusions from the findings are also presented in this section. This writing style has created ambiguity. I suggest that it be modified in terms of writing.

- Discussion:

The discussion in the abstract is not based on the findings of this study. It is suggested to modify the discussion based on the results.

Introduction:

- The phrase "This phrase should be removed from the target" should be removed from the target

Method:

-The exclusion criteria needs to be modified. Note that the withdrawal criterion includes cases where the participants are excluded from the study after entering the study.Please revise.

-Results:

-Data analysis should be modified. Illustrative codes are not properly compared and merged, or I cannot understand their semantic relationship with sub-themes and themes. Please use clearer labels. Or review the categories. For example, what are the illustrative codes for the sub-theme "Breastfeeding Confidence vs. Societal Norms"?

-How could you extract the theme "Quality of Prenatal Breastfeeding Education" with one sub-them "Consistency and quality of information received".

suggest you review the findings carefully and fix this basic problem in data analysis.

-In many of the explanations you have given for themes and sub-themes with quotations, you have used a quantitative approach that firmly describes the relationships between cause and effect. This is a major problem and needs modification. For example, in the phrase "postnatal mothers highlighted a gap between the educational content and the "holistic" preparation

needed for a successful breastfeeding experience. Some of the postnatal mothers felt that

"inadequate knowledge" about common breastfeeding challenges contributed to "unmet

expectations", negatively impacted their breastfeeding self-efficacy and subsequently affected

their decision to continue breastfeeding".

Is it possible to explain this causal relationship decisively based on the experience of one or two participants? Please pay attention to the explanations provided for themes and sub-themes and modify similar items.

Discussion:

-limitations

Weakness in generalizability is part of the nature of qualitative studies. For the limitations of your study, I suggest that you mention the limitations you had in conducting the study, including methodology and data analysis. Including the method of data collection and so on.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Yayi Suryo Prabandari

Reviewer #2: Yes: S. Alexandra Marshall

Reviewer #3: Yes: Mehrsadat Mahdizadeh

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-33587_reviewer comments.pdf

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Submitted filename: PONE.pdf

A Qualitative Study on the Perspectives of Prenatal Breastfeeding Educational Classes in Ireland: Implications for Maternal Breastfeeding Decisions

PONE-D-24-33587R1

Dear Dr. Annmarie Grealish,

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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Kind regards,

Trhas Tadesse Berhe, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #2: I believe the authors have addressed all the comments provided by the reviewers. I have no additional comments to address.

Reviewer #3: Dear Author

Thank you for providing valuable findings to solve the problems of breastfeeding education classes and for your efforts to complete your manuscript.

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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 #2: Yes: S. Alexandra Marshall

Reviewer #3: Yes: Mehrsadat mahdizadeh

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