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

Hello friends 👋 The Incubator Podcast is proud to bring you exclusive coverage of PAS 2026 in Boston, one of the most anticipated gatherings in pediatric and neonatal medicine. Today marks day one of the conference. Ben and Daphna are already on the floor sitting down with leading researchers, clinicians, and innovators shaping the future of neonatology. These special episodes explore the latest advances in neonatal brain injury, cell therapy, family centered care, and much

Hello friends 👋 In this episode, Dr. Callie Marshall, a third-year neonatology fellow at Washington University, shares her journey through medical school and fellowship, highlighting her research on racial variations in neonatal care. She discusses her mentorship experience, emphasizing the importance of finding a mentor who aligns with one's interests and values. Dr. Marshall elaborates on her research project that investigates the accuracy of near-infrared spectroscopy (N

Breaking news from the American Board of Pediatrics: a proposal to move all 15 pediatric subspecialties to a two-year, competency-based training model by July 2028 just dropped, and Ben and Daphna are breaking it down in real time. What does shifting from time-based to EPA-grounded training mean for neonatology fellows? Is two years actually enough? What happens to scholarship, research exposure, and the physician-scientist pipeline? And should neonatology take this reshuffli

Hello friends 👋 In this episode of At the Bench, Misty Good and David McCulley interview Dr. Christopher Thom, a neonatologist and leader blood lineage development. Dr. Thom discusses his training in hematology research and what inspired him to build an outstanding research program studying platelet biology and how his research is being translated to change transfusion care for patients. The conversation emphasizes the importance of collaboration in neonatology physician-sc

Hello friends 👋 The transfusion threshold consensus is here — but practice hasn't fully caught up. In the second episode of On with VON, Ben and Daphna sit down with Dr. Roger Soll and Dr. Ravi Patel to extend the conversation from the Vermont Oxford Network Grand Rounds on evidence to practice for transfusion thresholds. The core finding across trials is consistent: lower thresholds for both packed red blood cells and platelets appear safe. The guidelines are freely availa

Hello friends 👋 The AAP has weighed in on therapeutic hypothermia for HIE, and Daphna walks through the clinical report in full. The core eligibility criteria haven't moved — but the edges have gotten more nuanced. Late initiation, the 35-week zone, mild HIE, sentinel events, MRI timing, and feeding during cooling are all addressed. Also this week: a prospective pilot from Australia tests whether adding bedside ultrasound to plain radiography improves surgical risk stratifi

Hello friends 👋 In this episode, Mbozu and Shelly-Ann sit down with Dr. Bharati Datta and Dr. Josel Doyle for a conversation that spans four decades and one very full circle moment. Over 40 years ago, Dr. Datta arrived in St. Vincent and the Grenadines from India as the only pediatrician on the island. One of the tiny preterm babies she cared for, weighing barely over a pound at discharge, grew up to become a neonatologist herself. That baby is Dr. Doyle. Together we explo