Abstract
We thank Dr. Shaw and Dr. Shridhar for their interest in our article. They provided evidence of the current low uptake practices of Skin-to-Skin Contact (SSC) in India and highlighted the challenges faced by clinicians in implementing SSC after birth including lack of clinicians' awareness, staffing, time constraints, and safety concerns (1). Similarly, our observational study of the practice of SSC after birth in two major hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia identified that SSC was not common and was not prioritised by clinicians (2). This observational study was one component of a larger mixed methods research project that aimed to understand the contemporary status of SSC through triangulating data from interviewing clinicians, observations of hospital practices, and surveying mothers in Saudi Arabia.