Does Bed Sharing with an Infant Influence Parents’ Sexual Life? A Scoping Review in Western Countries
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
I have read the manuscript with interest, and value the effort. Saying this, I share with you several comments and suggestions for your reflection and appreciation.
The impact of bedsharing and parenthood in general for couples are a relevant research topic.
About the present study, I suggest detailing it. How many references has been selected; which countries? Does it make sense to present results in a table? As you know academics and journals give priority to systematic review as a regular review article to provide the best evidence, therefore justify your option clearly in your paper.
In introduction, more information would add value. How are sexual life before and after parenthood? Frequency of bedsharing? Reasons for bedsharing in western countries’ families?
What about a possible lower testosterone level in fathers; fathers’ perspective/ role? Justify why just mother’s selection initiative?
Please add new knowledge/ deepness, some information are redundant.
Some references/ sources along the manuscript are absent, please include it.
Would you like to add some topics for further research?
All the best.
Author Response
About the present study, I suggest detailing it. How many references has been selected; which countries? Does it make sense to present results in a table? As you know academics and journals give priority to systematic review as a regular review article to provide the best evidence, therefore justify your option clearly in your paper.
Reply: We thank the reviewer for this remark. We revised our methods and results section to address this point. We have now added a section on Search Strategy, Study election, and Data Extraction and Synthesis (lines 108-143). We also added a figure of PRISMA chart (line 378) and we detailed study characteristics in a newly created Table (see Table 1).
In introduction, more information would add value. How are sexual life before and after parenthood? Frequency of bedsharing? Reasons for bedsharing in western countries’ families?
Reply: We would like to thank the reviewer for this point. We have revised extensively the introduction. We also discuss the reason in lines 121-122 “Because of the great cultural variation observed in the practice of bedsharing, we decided to focus on western countries only.”
What about a possible lower testosterone level in fathers; fathers’ perspective/ role? Justify why just mother’s selection initiative?
Reply: We agree with the reviewer that the physiological and psychological changes in fathers are also significant. We have revised our manuscript to reflect this and we included studies that included both fathers and mothers in the study sample.
Please add new knowledge/ deepness, some information are redundant.
Reply: We removed redundant information from Discussion and we kept only information that derived form the reviewed studies.
Some references/ sources along the manuscript are absent, please include it.
Reply: Thank you for pointing this out. We revised our reference list and double checked all in text citations were mentioned in the reference list.
Would you like to add some topics for further research?
Reply: We would like to thank the reviewer for this helpful suggestion. We included a section on recommendations for future studies in lines 229-137.
Reviewer 2 Report
The study conducted a narrative review on the impact of parent-infant bedsharing sleeping practice on the sexual and marital relationship of the couple. This research question is rarely raised and worthy of being studied and understood. There are some suggestions for further improvement of the paper.
- Some statements in the Background and Result seem not evidence-based, such as “The mother seems to be in charge of the initiative for sexual intercourse, sacrificing part of her sleep or urging her partner to caress her – as an alternative - if she is not in the mood for sex”. If this situation is common, references should be provided.
- Since the study only focuses on Western countries, it is suggested to add “- A narrative review in western countries” in the title.
- It is unclear about the process of literature searching and exclusion, such as the number of the literatures searched and the number of exclusions. How many literatures were finally included in the analysis?
- It is suggested to describe the rule of data synthesis in Methodology.
- In the second paragraph of Result 3.4 Sex life of new mothers “Although it is acknowledged that these symptoms should not be generalized…”, how does the perspective come into being? It appears neither from literatures, nor from raw data. It seems like the opinion of authors.
- It is suggested to consider the structure change of the manuscript. For example, in Result, authors put forward areas for further systematic research, which might be more suitable in Discussion session.
- It is suggested to include strength and limitation of the study in Discussion.
Author Response
Some statements in the Background and Result seem not evidence-based, such as “The mother seems to be in charge of the initiative for sexual intercourse, sacrificing part of her sleep or urging her partner to caress her – as an alternative - if she is not in the mood for sex”. If this situation is common, references should be provided.
Reply: We would like to thank the reviewer for raising this important point. We have extensively revised our Background and Discussion sections and we believe we have now eliminated all non-evidence-based commentary.
Since the study only focuses on Western countries, it is suggested to add “- A narrative review in western countries” in the title.
Reply: Thank you for this suggestion. We have now changed the title accordingly.
It is unclear about the process of literature searching and exclusion, such as the number of the literatures searched and the number of exclusions. How many literatures were finally included in the analysis?
Reply: We thank the reviewer for this remark. We revised our methods and results section to address this point. We have now added a section on Search Strategy, Study election, and Data Extraction and Synthesis (lines 108-143). We also added a figure of PRISMA chart (line 378).
It is suggested to describe the rule of data synthesis in Methodology.
Reply: Thank you for this point. We have added the second on Data Extraction and Synthesis (line 134-143).
In the second paragraph of Result 3.4 Sex life of new mothers “Although it is acknowledged that these symptoms should not be generalized…”, how does the perspective come into being? It appears neither from literatures, nor from raw data. It seems like the opinion of authors.
Reply: We agree with the reviewer. We eliminated this statement, along with all other non-empirically based statements.
It is suggested to consider the structure change of the manuscript. For example, in Result, authors put forward areas for further systematic research, which might be more suitable in Discussion session.
Reply: We agree with the reviewer, and we have therefore restructured most of the points originally made in the Results section, by placing them under “Discussion”.
It is suggested to include strength and limitation of the study in Discussion.
Reply: We are appreciative of this suggestion. We have now added this under Discussion, lines 216-228.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the comments.
Best regards.
