Hello friends 👋 On July 1st, nine neonatologists at the only Level III NICU in Southern Oregon were terminated and replaced with a locums-only staffing model. Dr. Shelly Haug Monti, one of those physicians and a founding member of Babies First, joins Ben to describe what happened, what the group had been trying to raise with hospital leadership beforehand, and why they chose to organize rather than quietly move on. She discusses continuity of care in a 32-bed unit covering 2

Hello friends 👋 The Incubator Podcast is coming to you from the Children’s Hospitals Neonatal Consortium (CHNC) Symposium in Denver, Colorado! Daphna sits down with the physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, and researchers whose focus groups collaborate all year round, across the United States and into Canada, to move research to the bedside sooner for the most complex babies in level IV NICUs. Catch all of these episodes on both our podcast channel and our YouTube channe

Hello friends 👋 Dr. Charles Roehr joins Daphna for the third episode of The Incubator’s special series on non-invasive ventilation, recorded ahead of Hot Topics in Neonatology. The conversation starts with a question most of us stopped asking long ago: is the pressure on the screen the pressure in the lung? From there they work through leak, interface cycling and skin injury, how to tell whether a baby needs more pressure, why a unit’s familiarity with its equipment may pred

Hello friends 👋 This week we are replaying one of our most listened-to episodes, which sits right at the heart of our special series on non-invasive ventilation recorded ahead of Hot Topics in Neonatology. Dr. Cindy McEvoy, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Neonatal Research at OHSU, joins Ben and Daphna to discuss her work on extended CPAP in preterm infants. CPAP has long been a cornerstone of neonatal care, but how long should stable infants remain on support? Dr. M

Hello friends 👋 Dr. Brett Manley joins Ben for the opening episode of The Incubator’s special series on non-invasive ventilation, recorded ahead of Hot Topics in Neonatology. They work through the full arc of non-invasive support, from the delivery room to the convalescent phase and beyond. What actually counts as nasal high flow, and when should it come off? Why did HIPSTER and HUNTER move clinicians back toward CPAP as primary support? Is the benefit of NIPPV about synchro

Hello friends 👋 Can the numbers flashing across the bedside monitor predict which preterm infant will need a pressor? In this episode, Rupa sits down with Dr. Nicholas Heitkamp, a third-year neonatology fellow at the University of Virginia, whose NeoHeart London presentation won the oral presentation award. Nick explains how he used UVA’s continuous vital sign repository to find that heart rate skewness, mean SpO2, and SpO2 variability, combined with gestational age and birt

Hello friends 👋 What does a NICU family need most: an explanation, or someone who simply shows up? In this episode of Beyond the Beeps, Leah sits down with Isaac Jonas, an economist from Abbotsford, British Columbia, whose son was born at 30 weeks and spent 48 days in the NICU. Isaac kept a daily journal that became his memoir, Every Day Counts. He shares how he held his family together while driving back and forth to the hospital with his older son, why a 98% survival figur

Hello friends 👋 The Incubator Podcast is coming to you from the sold-out National Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Symposium in sunny Clearwater, Florida! Daphna Yasova Barbeau is joined by her co-host for the week, Dr. Krista Matrone, as they sit down with the speakers, educators, and nurse practitioners shaping the future of neonatal care. From neurodevelopment and pain management to kidney health, breastfeeding, and NNP education, there is so much to learn, and every member of

Hello friends 👋 James Roberts, co-founder and CEO of mOm Incubators, returns to Tech Tuesday almost four years after his first appearance, when the device was still in development. A lot has changed. The mOm Essentials is now CE marked and FDA cleared, in use across eight countries, and has reached roughly 18,500 patients, from NHS maternity wards to air raid shelters in Ukraine. Daphna and James talk through what makes the system different: a bassinet sized footprint, one b

Hello friends 👋 In this episode of At the Bench, Misty Good and David McCulley interview Dr. Sallie Permar, Chair of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and Director of the Pediatric Scientist Development Program. Dr. Permar shares how her early global health experiences in Zambia inspired her career as a pediatric infectious disease physician-scientist and vaccine researcher. She discusses the challenges and advances in developing vaccines against HIV and congenital cytome

Hello friends 👋 This week on The Incubator Podcast, Ben and Daphna dig into four studies testing what simple, evidence-based care looks like at the bedside. They open with a Swedish national cohort of nearly 4,700 very preterm infants, where a three-strain probiotic was linked to a 72% lower risk of death or NEC and near elimination of surgical NEC. Daphna then presents a study of banana puree as a natural thickener for NICU dysphagia, with oral intake reaching full volume w

Hello friends 👋 What do you reach for when you're called to a delivery at 2 a.m. and the NRP algorithm feels just out of reach? In this episode, Ben sits down with Lily Bachelor, a neonatal nurse practitioner from Colorado who turned her own new grad anxiety into a practical bedside tool. Together with her husband, a graphic designer specializing in signage and wayfinding, Lily created badge-sized neonatal resuscitation reference cards, now updated to the ninth edition of th

Hello friends 👋 In this episode, Shelly-Ann sits down with Dr. Scott Guthrie to discuss his global health work, SALSA, and quality improvement. He shares how working alongside neonatal teams in different settings has shaped his approach to improving care, including what he has brought back to his own practice in Tennessee. From introducing SALSA in Azerbaijan to adapting lessons from a delayed cord clamping project in Ethiopia, Scott describes how learning moves in both dire

Hello friends 👋 The American Board of Pediatrics has reversed course. After months of pushback from the neonatology community, the ABP has excluded neonatal-perinatal medicine from the two year fellowship waivers it is now granting to seven other pediatric subspecialties. Neonatology fellowship stays at three years. Ben is joined by Dr. Patrick Myers, past chair of ONTPD and fellowship director at Northwestern, and Dr. Brooke Vergales, ONTPD co-chair, to break down how this

Hello friends 👋 This week on The Incubator Podcast, Ben and Daphna dig into four studies testing what the evidence supports at the bedside. They open with the 24-month BeNeDuctus follow-up, where expectant management and early ibuprofen for PDA yield identical survival without neurodevelopmental impairment. Daphna then presents the Nourish trial, finding individually targeted milk fortification did not improve growth, body composition, or brain MRI outcomes. Next, a Dutch st

Hello friends 👋 Your patient's twins were just diagnosed with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Do you know what the next six months actually look like for that family? On this episode of Beyond the Beeps, Leah sits down with Lisa Zahakos, physician assistant, mother of identical twins Peter and Maurice, and founder of Heart Reserve, for a raw, detailed walk through a TTTS pregnancy, fetal laser surgery, and a NICU stay that redefined how she understands medicine. Lisa shar

Hello friends 👋 Feeding in the NICU is rarely one person's job, yet the language around it changes from nurse to therapist to physician to parent. In this Tech Tuesday episode, Ben and Daphna sit down with Lisa Kleinz and Erin Lesage of Dr. Brown's Medical to unpack feeding together, a philosophy built on team approach, family at the center, and feeding that begins on day one rather than at first bottle. They discuss what separates cue-based feeding from a truly standardized

Hello friends 👋 Ben sits down with Dr. Shetal Shah and AAP federal advocacy director Stephanie Glier to unpack HR1, the sweeping reconciliation bill that could cut $1.15 trillion in federal Medicaid spending over the next decade. With 40% of US births and up to 65% of NICU graduates covered by Medicaid, the stakes for neonatology are enormous. Shetal and Stephanie break down state directed payments, provider taxes, shortened retroactive coverage windows, and new work require

Hello friends 👋 This week on The Incubator Podcast, Ben and Daphna dig into four studies reshaping bedside decisions. They open questioning whether routine DAT screening for ABO and RhD incompatibility still earns its place, finding transcutaneous bilirubin alone predicts phototherapy need just as well. Next, a Swedish national registry of over two million births links missed intramuscular vitamin K, and rising oral substitution, to a near-doubling of bleeding and intracrani

Hello friends 👋 In this episode, Misty and Betsy sit down with Dr. Brian Kalish, a neonatologist-neuroscientist at Boston Children's Hospital, for a wide-ranging conversation on building a career at the intersection of fetal and neonatal brain injury research. Brian traces his path from public health and pediatric surgery to neuroscience, describes what "technical courage" means in the lab, and shares the story behind his move to SickKids Toronto and back. He discusses his l