Guide to Authors

Welcome to the electronic manuscript submission website for Journal of Perinatology. The instructions below are structured so you can quickly and easily answer the following questions:

1. Is my manuscript suitable for Journal of Perinatology? (Scope + Editorial Note)
2. How do I format my manuscript for Journal of Perinatology? (Format of Papers)
3. How do I submit my manuscript to Journal of Perinatology? (Submission of Papers)

OTHER LINKS

• About the journal
• Format of papers
• Preparation of Original Articles
• House style
• Submission of papers
• Editorial policy
• Ethics and bioethics
• Peer review policy
• Corrections
• About npg online services

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Scope

Topics Covered
Topics covered reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the subject; its coverage includes maternal-fetal medicine, neonatal medicine, and follow-up of the high-risk infant.

Editor	Edward E. Lawson, MD
Frequency	12 issues a year
Abstracted in	Science Citation Index Excerpta Medica/EMBASE Index Medicus/Medline MEDLARS Cambridge Scientific Abstracts Elsevier BIOBASE/Current Awareness in Biological Sciences Combined Cumulative Index to Pediatrics CINAHL Information System

Editorial Note

Journal of Perinatology considers manuscripts prepared in accordance with "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (Ann Intern Med 1997:126; 36-47).

FORMAT OF PAPERS

Article Type	Description	Word Count
Original Article	Generally, the Journal only considers original research materials that are directly relevant to clinical practice.	Length should not exceed 20 pages including abstract, text, tables, illustrations, and references
State-of-the-Art and Commentaries	State-of-the-Art manuscripts are review articles intended to update readers on important subjects relevant to maternal-fetal and neonatal care. These articles are considered to be complete from the most recent major review in the literature. Authors should contact the Editor before submission of a completed project.	Commentaries are shorter articles that review a limited topic and/or may express controversial opinions regarding specific aspects of perinatal and neonatal care practices.
Case Presentations	Case presentations are intended to present new concepts of management or pathophysiology that are illustrated by a few patients.	The manuscript should not exceed three printed pages. Hence, manuscripts should be limited to approximately 1000 words, two to three figures and 10-15 references. Abstracts for Case Presentations are unstructured.
Letters to the Editor	Letters may be brief comments regarding aspects of care or in response to specific published articles in the Journal. Letters are subject to critical review and editorial policy.
Calendar	Announcements of scheduled meetings, symposia or postgraduate courses may be sent for consideration at least five months in advance of the date of publication desired.
Other	To submit a manuscript as a Special Feature, State-of-the-Art or Imaging Casebook, contact the editorial office

Preparation of Original Articles

Abstract
A structured abstract is required for original articles and a standard abstract format is required for other types of articles. An abbreviated unformatted abstract is preferred for Case Presentations and State-of-the-Art articles.
The structured abstract should be limited to 150 words, under the following headings:
Objective - reflecting the purpose of the study or the hypothesis that is being tested
Study Design - the setting for the study, the subjects (number and type), the treatment or intervention, and the type of statistical analysis
Result - include the outcome of the study and statistical significance, if appropriate
Conclusion - state the significance of the results
Keywords - provide a list of key words that do not appear in the title

References
Only papers directly related to the article should be cited. Exhaustive lists should be avoided. References should follow the Vancouver format. In the text they should appear as numbers starting at one and at the end of the paper they should be listed (double-spaced) in numerical order corresponding to the order of citation in the text. All authors should be quoted for papers with up to six authors; for papers with more than six authors, the first six only should be quoted, followed by et al. Abbreviations for titles of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus. The first and last page numbers for each reference should be provided. Abstracts and letters must be identified as such. Papers in press and papers already submitted for publication may be included in the list of references but no citation is required for work that is not yet submitted for publication.

Journal article, up to six authors et al:
Martin JC, Bourgnoux P, Fignon A, Theret V, Antoine JM, Lamisse F et al. Dependence on human milk essential fatty acids on adipose stores during lactation. Am J Clin Nutr 1993; 58: 653–569.

Journal article, e-pub ahead of print:
da Costa SP, van den Engel–Hoek L, Bos AF. Sucking and swallowing in infants and diagnostic tools. J Perinatol 2008; e-pub ahead of print 17 January 2008; doi:10.1038/sj.jp.7211924.

Journal article, in press:
Brown N. Perinatal and newborn care in South Asia: priorities for action. Arch Dis Child(in press).

Complete book:
Willett WC. Nutritional Epidemiology. Oxford University Press: New York, 1998.

Chapter in book:
Blizzard RM, Bulatovic A. (1996). Syndromes of psychosocial short stature. In: Lipshitz F (ed). Pediatric Endocrinology. Marcel Dekker: New York, 1986, pp 213–276.

Abstract:
Minck P. A synactive model of neonatal behavioral organization. Phys Occup Ther Pediatr 2002; 22(Suppl 1): 28 (abstract 456).

Correspondence:
Sehgal A, Ramsden A (2008). Treating hypotension in the preterm infant: when and with what: a critical and systematic review [letter]. J Perinatol 28, 167.

EndNote users should select the The Journal of Perinatology output style for the correct reference style.

Personal communications must be allocated a number and included in the list of references in the usual way or simply referred to in the text; the authors may choose which method to use. In either case authors must obtain permission from the individual concerned to quote his/her unpublished work.

House Style

Abbreviations and Symbols
Do not use abbreviations in the title or abstract, and limit their use in the text. The first time an abbreviation appears it should be preceded by the words for which it stands. For a list of standard medical abbreviations and measurements, consult the American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, 9th edition (Baltimore: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 1998). There should be no hyphenation of phrases such as “very low birth weight”, “birth weight” and “extremely low birth weight".

Fast Track Publication
For manuscripts dealing with urgent issues that necessitate expedient publication, the author may request a Fast Track Review. The author should state the reason for such a request in his or her cover letter. The editor will make a decision for fast track within a few days. If an adverse decision is made then the authors may request withdrawal of the manuscript or allow processing in the normal fashion.

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

Journal of Perinatology OPEN

Upon submission of an original research paper, authors can indicate within the manuscript tracking system whether they wish to pay a one off fee to allow their article to become freely available immediately upon publication. The fee is £2,000/$3,000/€2,400 (plus VAT where applicable) and can be paid via credit card or by requesting an invoice be raised.

By paying this fee authors are permitted to post the final, published, pdf of their article on a website, institutional repository or other free public server immediately on publication.

Upon acceptance, authors must fill out and send back a payment form. This is mandatory and failure to send in the payment form along with the Licence to Publish form will result in the article being published as a standard paper behind access control. The licence to publish form has been amended to offer authors the choice of which licence to use on their paper and these choices are described below:

The first is the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported Licence and allows readers to download the article and share it with others as long as they mention the author and link back to the original article. The article cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.

The second is the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence and allows readers to alter, transform, or build upon the article and then distribute the resulting work under the same or similar license to this one. The work must be attributed back to the original author and commercial use is not permitted.

For further information please see the Journal of Perinatology Open FAQs and payment form.

Colour charges

Further information
To find out who to contact for advertising, subscriptions, permissions, papers in production or publishing a supplement, please visit our publisher’s contacts page. Alternatively, you can write to: Journal of Perinatology, Nature Publishing Group, The Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, UK.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Statement of Ethics

Peer-review policy

Correction and retraction process

Non-Native Speakers of English
Researchers who are not native speakers of English who submit manuscripts to international journals often received negative comments from referees or editors about the English-language usage in their manuscripts, and these problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript review for clarify by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use on of the many English language editing services that are available, such as that offered by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing. An editor will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review.

Please note that the use of Nature Publishing Group Language Editing is at the author's own expense and in no way implies that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted by an NPG journal (or any other journal). The decisions that the editors of any NPG journal make based on the quality and suitability of a manuscript for that journal are entirely independent of whether that manuscript has been language-edited by Nature Publishing Group Language Editing.

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