Hello friends 👋 What would it really mean to shorten neonatology fellowship training to two years? In this episode, Ben and co-host Dr. Shetal Shah sit down with three division heads, Dr. Jill Maron (Brown), Dr. Patrick McNamara (University of Iowa), and Dr. Sarah Taylor (Yale), to examine the ABP's proposed changes from the perspective of those who run major academic NICUs. From the operational and financial strain of losing an entire class of third-year fellows, to the ero

Hello friends 👋 What happens when a scientist and a clinician scientist build a lab together, and an entire career, around the same disease? On this episode of At the Bench, Misty Good and Ben Fensterheim sit down with Professors Claudia and Marcel Nold, a husband and wife team running their lab at Monash University and the Hudson Institute. They trace their path from Charles Dinarello's cytokine lab in Denver to Melbourne, where they built a research program on IL-1 biology

Hello friends 👋 What does it mean to truly improve outcomes for very low birth weight infants, and are we actually doing it? In this episode, Daphna sits down with Dr. Joseph Kaempf, neonatologist and Medical Director of Value Research and Innovation at Providence Health System in Oregon, to examine some uncomfortable truths about neonatal quality improvement. Dr. Kaempf shares findings from a study spanning 16 NICUs over 14 years showing that composite morbidity outcomes ha

Hello friends 👋 Phototherapy duration, jaundice and UTIs, extended CPAP, and The Pitt. A full week on the Incubator Journal Club. Ben opens with a nationwide Swedish cohort study from JAMA Network Open examining phototherapy duration in nearly 5,000 very preterm infants. Longer phototherapy was not significantly associated with late neonatal mortality, but six to seven days was associated with significantly higher rates of severe neonatal morbidity. With 95% of the cohort re

Hello friends 👋 In this episode, Mbozu and Shelly-Ann sit down with Dr. Naana Wireko Brobby, a neonatologist leading national efforts to strengthen newborn care in Ghana. She shares a grounded view of daily life at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, where high patient volumes, resource constraints, and continuous teaching shape clinical work. The conversation traces her journey into neonatology, then moves into system-level change: building a national retinopathy of prematurity

Hello friends 👋 What if closing a PDA could be done at the bedside in under 10 minutes, without transporting a fragile preterm infant to the cath lab? Dr. Shyam Sathanandam, Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at Nicklaus Children's Heart Institute, joins us to discuss the evolution of transcatheter PDA closure in extremely preterm infants. We cover how bedside procedures protect the most vulnerable neonates, which infants are most likely to benefit from closure, the learning c

Hello friends 👋 Opioid withdrawal dosing, intranasal breast milk, human milk fortification in Japan, neonatal dysphagia, and vaccine policy. A full week on the Incubator Journal Club. Ben opens with the Optimized NOW trial in JAMA: symptom-based dosing reduced time to medical readiness for discharge by nearly two and a half days in NOWS infants managed with Eat Sleep Console, and allowed 65% of pharmacologically treated infants to avoid scheduled opioids entirely. Daphna rev

Hello friends 👋 What does dexamethasone actually do to the preterm heart over time? In this episode of Rupa's Fellows Friday, Srirupa sits down with Phoenix Plessas-Azurduy, doctoral candidate at McGill University and researcher at the NeoCardioLab under Dr. Gabriel Altit. Phoenix shares her work on NORDIC-SPEC, a prospective longitudinal study using serial echocardiography to characterize the cardiovascular effects of dexamethasone in preterm infants. Her preliminary findin

Hello friends 👋 Amber and Andrew Vassell navigated two NICU stays with faith, advocacy, and what they call bubbling. From Austin, born at 25 weeks and one pound one ounce, to Aaliyah at 26 weeks, the Vassells built relationships with care teams, requested meetings, asked hard questions, and chose joy in the most uncertain moments. Now they are channeling that experience into Neo Haven and the NICU Journey Guide, designed to help every NICU family navigate with clarity, confi

Hello friends 👋 What does it take to turn a single struggling baby into a national standard of care? In this episode, Ben sits down with Professor Katsumi Mizuno (Showa Medical University) and Dr. Melinda Elliott (Chief Medical Officer, Prolacta Bioscience) to discuss the landmark Jasmine Trial, the first randomized controlled trial of an exclusive human milk diet (EHMD) in Japan. The results: significantly better weight and length gain, and fewer antibiotic days in very pre

Hello friends 👋 The NICU is one of the loudest environments a newborn will ever experience, yet it is also where the most vulnerable infants spend their earliest, most developmentally critical days. In this Tech Tuesday episode, Ben and Daphna sit down with Gabby Daltoso and Sophie Ishiwari, co-founders of the Sonura Beanie. Their device tackles two pressing NICU challenges at once: harmful noise exposure and disrupted parental connection. By embedding a low-pass filtration

Hello friends 👋 Every neonatologist has built a protocol or written a guideline, and most have done it completely alone. In this episode, Ben sits down with Dr. Christina Muffy Sollinger (UC Davis) and Dr. Sarvin Ghavam (CHOP), the co-founders of NeoGuide, a national collaborative dedicated to connecting clinicians around the shared work of clinical guidelines and practice pathways. Born from a single email that broke a listserv and generated over 120 responses overnight, Ne

Hello friends 👋 Cerebral oxygenation, staffing economics, delivery room scoring, neurodevelopmental prognostication, and public health — a full week on the Incubator Journal Club. Ben walks through the NIRTURE trial, a single-device RCT testing cerebral oximetry-guided care in infants born under 29 weeks. The intervention dramatically reduced the burden of cerebral hypoxia and hyperoxia compared to standard care. Secondary clinical outcomes were neutral and neurodevelopmenta

Hello Friends 👋 The neonatal kidney is one of the most understudied organs in our field — and yet the drugs we use every day in the NICU may be affecting it in ways we are only beginning to understand. In this episode of At the Bench, Dr. Misty Good and Dr. Betsy Crouch sit down with Dr. Pamela Good, neonatologist and physician scientist at Columbia University, to discuss her groundbreaking research on nephron development, low nephron endowment, and acute kidney injury (AKI)

Hello Friends 👋 The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) recently announced a move toward competency-based subspecialty training that would shorten fellowships — including neonatology — from three years to two. The proposal has sent shockwaves through the training community. In this episode, Daphna sits down with three leaders from the Organization of Neonatal Perinatal Training Program Directors (ONTPD): Dr. Patrick Myers from Northwestern, Dr. Heather French from the Childre

Hello friends 👋 In this episode, we explore a decade-long journey to transform newborn care in Ghana's Hohoe region, focusing on family systems of care, cross-cultural research collaborations, and innovative training approaches. In this episode we explore • The healthcare landscape for small and sick newborns in Ghana's Volta region • The concept and application of family systems care versus family-centered care • Development and adaptation of practical tools like genograms

Hello friends 👋 Victoria Varela-Hefty, director of programs at ICU Baby and mother of James, a 28-weeker born in 2024, shares her NICU journey with honesty and grace. From a high-risk pregnancy complicated by Sjögren's syndrome and preeclampsia to an emergency classical C-section, inadequate postoperative pain management, and a cardiac complication that kept her hospitalized for eight days — Victoria reflects on what it felt like to navigate her own medical crisis while her

Hello friends 👋 The Incubator Podcast is back on the floor for day three and final day of PAS 2026 in Boston. Ben Courchia and Daphna Yasova Barbeau are closing out the conference with even more conversations from the researchers, clinicians, and innovators who are shaping the future of neonatology. The science doesn't stop and neither do we. Catch all of these episodes on both our podcast channel and our YouTube channel, wherever you prefer to listen or watch. Check out mor

Hello friends 👋 The Incubator Podcast is back on the floor for day two of PAS 2026 in Boston. Ben and Daphna continue their conversations with the researchers, clinicians, and advocates shaping the future of neonatology — from cutting-edge science on neonatal hematology and opioid-exposed infants to some of the most powerful parent perspectives we have ever had in the booth. If yesterday set the tone, today raises the bar. Catch all of these episodes on both our podcast chan

Hello friends 👋 The Incubator Podcast is back on the floor for day two of PAS 2026 in Boston. Ben and Daphna continue their conversations with the researchers, clinicians, and advocates shaping the future of neonatology — from cutting-edge science on neonatal hematology and opioid-exposed infants to some of the most powerful parent perspectives we have ever had in the booth. If yesterday set the tone, today raises the bar. Catch all of these episodes on both our podcast chan