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 👋 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 👋 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 👋 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 👋 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

Disclosure: Dr. Wanda Barfield appeared on this episode in her personal capacity. The views she expresses are her own and do not represent the official positions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. Hello friends 👋 The American Academy of Pediatrics has never had a neonatologist as president. This September, that could change. In this special episode, Ben sits down with Dr. Wanda Barf

Hello friends 👋 Why does reading in the NICU still feel optional when the evidence says otherwise? Daphna sits down with Paige Pedroli, author of the Nic Zoo book and two-time NICU mom, and Dr. Raquel Garcia, a craniofacial and feeding specialist, to unpack why reading to preterm and critically ill infants belongs alongside kangaroo care as neuropromotive, not just neuroprotective. They cover the evidence behind auditory stimulation and language outcomes, why reading gives o

Hello friends 👋 Is your EMR actually built for neonatology, or just retrofitted to survive it? Ben sits down with Dr. Lindsey Knake, clinical assistant professor and associate chief health information officer at the University of Iowa, to talk AI in the NICU. They cover the real difference between Epic's homegrown tools and third-party options like Evidently and NABLA, why a six-month hospital stay breaks most chart summarization tools, and how ambient AI is starting to chan

Hello friends 👋 When is surfactant "early," and when is it too early, or too late? In this second installment of our two-part series with the Neonatal Resuscitation Symposium, Ben Courchia sits down with Dr. Roger Soll, a leading voice in surfactant research since the 1980s, to trace how our thinking on timing has evolved, from aggressive prophylactic dosing to selective rescue therapy to today's less invasive approaches like LISA and SALSA. Dr. Soll unpacks why head-to-head

Hello friends 👋 How far has delivery room ventilation really come? In this special episode, recorded in collaboration with the Neonatal Resuscitation Symposium, Ben sits down with Dr. Charles Roehr, professor of neonatology and perinatal medicine at the University of Bristol, clinical trialist at the University of Oxford, and member of ILCOR. Together they trace the evolution of respiratory support at birth, from the era of fixed inflation breaths to today's focus on physiol

Hello friends 👋 Does the latest Cochrane evidence finally tip the balance in favor of erythropoiesis stimulating agents in preterm infants? In this VON Grand Rounds follow-up episode, Ben sits down with Dr. Roger Soll and Dr. Souvik Mitra to review the 2026 Cochrane systematic review on early ESA use in preterm newborns. Across 37 trials and over 6,000 infants, early ESAs consistently reduce the need for red blood cell transfusion. The review also confirms with high certaint

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 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 👋 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 👋 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 👋 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 👋 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 👋 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