Precursors of Prenatal Attachment and Anxiety during Pregnancy in Women Who Procreate Naturally and Pregnant Women following Assisted Reproduction Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study does not provide the ethical clearance information. Research not conducted correctly.

Author Response

Thank You for the suggestion. We have included in the ethical clearance information. Furthermore, We have modified the article according to the suggestions of the other reviewers.

Reviewer 2 Report

In my opinion, the limitations to which the authors themselves refer greatly compromises the validity of the results obtained in this study.

The fact that the research was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to having a direct consequence on the small number of women participating in the study, may also have consequences related to anxiety levels. The authors comment that this study did not focus on the effects of the COVID19 pandemic on women's adaptation to pregnancy and attachment to their babies, but the pandemic context was undoubtedly a factor that very likely interfered in this. .

In the same way, and taking into account the scientific evidence, leaving aside the evaluation of the personality characteristics of the women participating in the research, perhaps it was not a good decision.

I believe that the biases in the methodology used have direct consequences on the results, which is why I do not consider that the article has adequate scientific rigor to continue the review process.

Author Response

Thank You for the suggestion. We have included the characteristics of the pandemic context, which may have influenced the research results, between the limits; We have modified the article according to the suggestions of the other reviewers.

Furthermore we had already included the absence of assessment of personality characteristics among the research limitations, although measurement of this variable is not a goal of the research, which, instead, evaluates prenatal attachment and anxiety during pregnancy in women who procreate naturally and pregnant women following assisted reproduction technology.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors had made a good attempt at understanding how women has gone through ART's perception of the emotional attachment to the fetus after achieving a successful outcome. It is interesting to explore more on how the TYPE of ART may have affected a woman's perception of ANY form of ART. It would be ideal to just include women who have gone thru ICSI alone and group them to analyse rather than putting women with IUI together into this group as well as the treatment process, costs and success of treatment is quite different and that may limit the interpretation of the study or skew the results.

Minor editing as certain sentences are too long and convoluted. Suggest to use shorter statements.

Author Response

Unfortunately, due to a small number of characters, we weren't able to fit all comments into these spaces. For this reason, please see the attached article, where we have included the answers to each suggestion.
Furthermore, the article has been reviewed entirely by a native English translator.
Thank you very much

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

I would like the authors address several points:

Introduction needs to be shortened, and more concise. This is also refers to the aims and hypothesis avoiding simply listing these ones. 

However, some statements are not supported with the reference, and seemed as free interpretations. Please add reference to the lines from 119 to 135. Please explain "sons" in line 330. 

Tables are unclear, particularly as there are no units for the variables (ie. age and gestational age, etc) as well as no legend. The results are not profoundly and clearly represent in the Discussion.

Author Response

Unfortunately, due to a small number of characters, we weren't able to fit all comments into these spaces.
For this reason, please see the attached article, where we have included the answers to each suggestion.
Furthermore, the article has been reviewed entirely by a native English translator.
Thank you very much

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper can be accepted without any further changes.

Author Response

We thank You for Your suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Suggestions for improvement have been correctly incorporated

Author Response

We thank you for your suggestions

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for accepting the changes suggested. The manuscript still needs more work with the language expression to allow easier reading.

English has improved, although there are numerous long sentences which are complex and needs further clarity.

Author Response

We thank You for Your suggestions.

Please see the final version of the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you. 

All the comments and questions are properly addressed. No further comments. 

Author Response

We thank You for Your suggestions.

Please see the final version of the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx