Reviewer’s report
Title: 
‘I can no longer do my work like how I used to’: a mixed
methods longitudinal cohort study exploring how informal working mothers
balance the requirements of livelihood and safe childcare in South Africa.
Version: 
0 
Date: 
07 Jun 2021
Reviewer's report:
This is an important study of the experiences of new mothers in he informal
workforce in a community in South Africa finding care for their children as they
return to work. The stories of these mothers are quite compelling. The use of
qualitative interview and photovoice is excellent for eliciting the likely typical
dilemmas these people face as they try to provide for their families. The methods
and findings are well described. 
I had a few relatively minor questions/comments (below):
Line 144: "We estimated that twenty participants would be sufficient to achieve
the study aims and reach data saturation" How did you arrive at that number?
Line: 226 "We present data from 18/24 mothers who returned to work" Could it
be beneficial to present demographic data on the 6 people who did not return to
work? How were they able to do that? What supports were in place? 
Line 441: "Children in higher quality childcare have better cognitive, language
and social developmental outcomes" Does this statement need a reference?
Line 461: "This, suggests a possible lack of awareness of these issues."
(Referring to lack of expressed concern for developmentally stimulating
environments for children in care). This seems odd to include, when parents
appear to be managing matters of the most basic safety (i.e. "Will this childcare
provider keep my child alive for the day? It seems understandable that an
educationally enriched environment may not be front of mind. (To me, this read
as almost insulting to the women, that they needed to be educated around this
issue, when literally life or death childcare decisions were at hand.)
I know that this is a desperately poor part of the world and monthly earnings are
very low, but the compensation to participants seemed incredibly paltry, and for
a study addressing extreme poverty and deprivation, it would have been
especially appropriate to compensate people more than $8 USD for their
participation (though it was unclear to me whether this was for the whole project
or per interaction?) Why not do a little more for only 18 participants? 
Publons Reviewer Recognition
. Springer Nature can send verification of this
review directly to Publons (a subsidiary of Clarivate Analytics). If you would
like to take advantage of this service, please click on the “Yes” option below.
Your name, email address, title of the reviewed manuscript, name of the journal,
and date of your review submission (the “Review Data”) will then be transmitted
to Publons after the final decision on the manuscript has been made. If you have
already registered at Publons, they will notify you of the receipt of this review
and update your profile 
as per your settings and their policy. If you are not
registered with Publons, you will receive an email from them asking you to
register in order for them to be able to recognize your review on your new
profile page. Publons may use the Review Data to generate derivative metadata
for the benefit of Publons and you as a reviewer, carefully considering the
sensitivity of such information. For example, Publons may verify your record as
a reviewer by updating your profile published on its webservice if you have
registered for such service or help editors to identify candidate reviewers. Please
find the details of processing in Publons’ privacy policy
https://publons.com/about/terms
Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing
interests, considering the following questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available
under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the
editorial office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your
name in your published report. Please note you must decide whether to include
your name at the start of the process and confirm this decision whenever
prompted. If you change your decision later, we will not be able to publish your
name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please 
do not
 publish my name
with my report. (default)
Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes