The Incubator
A weekly discussion about new evidence in neonatal care and the fascinating individuals who make this progress possible. Hosted by Dr. Ben Courchia and Dr. Daphna Yasova Barbeau.
Episodes
943 episodes
#464 - [🫀 From The Heart] - Right Drugs, Wrong Heart - A TTTS Recipient That Fooled Everyone
In this episode of From the Heart, Dr. Nim Goldshtrom and Dr. Adrianne Bischoff dissect a hemodynamics consult that changes shape twice in 48 hours. A 30-week recipient twin from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome presents with biventricular dys...
#463 - 🗳️ Meet the Neonatologist Running for AAP President - A Conversation with Dr. Wanda Barfield
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 Departm...
#462 - 📑 Journal Club - The Complete Episode from September 5th 2026
This week's Journal Club. Monday, nasal CPAP versus NIPPV as the bridge to minimally invasive surfactant in infants born before 30 weeks, first author Dr. Hui Zhang. Tuesday, the PAEAN trial on high-dose erythropoietin for neonatal HIE, led by ...
#462 - [Neo News] - 📌 What Does The Pitt Get Right About Boundaries in Medicine?
A medical student on The Pitt finishes her shift, is asked to stay, and tells her supervisor to learn some boundaries. The internet did not let it go. Ben and Eli use that moment to work through what boundary setting actually looks like in a NI...
#462 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Dexamethasone Eye Drops Prevent Treatment Requiring ROP?
Steroids again? This time in the eye. Daphna brings the DROP-ROP trial from JAMA Pediatrics, a double-masked randomized study across fourteen Swedish centers asking whether topical dexamethasone can stop pre-threshold ROP from progressing to ty...
#462 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Continuous vs Bolus Feeding, Which One Grows Babies Better?
Every unit has a bolus camp and a continuous camp, and both are usually dug in. Ben brings a single center non-inferiority trial from India, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, randomizing 132 infants born before 29 weeks and under a thousa...
#462 - [Journal Club] - 📌 After HEAL Does a Second Trial Close the Book on EPO?
We already had HEAL, so why run this trial at all? Daphna brings PAEAN from JAMA Pediatrics, a phase three trial across 24 units in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore that gave high dose erythropoietin to 313 late preterm and term infants al...
#462 - [Journal Club] - 📌 After LISA Does CPAP Perform as Well as NIMV Below 30 Weeks?
Most trials comparing CPAP and NIMV leave a lingering doubt about whether surfactant explained the difference. This one does not. Ben brings a multicenter noninferiority trial from JAMA Network Open in infants born between 24 and 29 weeks, rand...
#461 - [🫀 From The Heart] - Blue Baby, Gray Baby: Severe LV Dysfunction Masquerading as PPHN
A term newborn looks fine on mom's chest, then crashes within minutes. By the time transport arrives, there's a pH of 6.9, a lactate over 10, and a baby already intubated and on surfactant. Is this pulmonary hypertension, congenital heart disea...
#460 - Reading as a neuroprotective intervention
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 wh...
#459 - Which AI tools are actually ready for the NICU right now?
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. ...
#458 - 📑 Journal Club - The Complete Episode from August 15th 2026
The full week of Journal Club in one place. Monday, the PLaNT trial of prophylactic CPAP for late preterm infants born by cesarean, with senior author Dr. Edgardo Szyld. Tuesday, whether parental holding during therapeutic hypothermia changes f...
#458 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Can the respiratory severity score show us where a baby is heading?
The respiratory severity score is one multiplication most of us already do in our heads, mean airway pressure times FiO2. This week Dr. Dinushan Kaluarachchi joins Journal Club to walk through three papers built on it, RSS trajectories across g...
#458 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Could a handheld light probe detect NEC before the X-ray does?
NEC still tends to announce itself on an X-ray, usually later than we want. This week Daphna reviews the first-in-human study of broadband optical spectroscopy, a handheld transcutaneous probe out of Lurie Children's that reads reflected light ...
#458 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Is this the trial that brings probiotics back to the NICU?
Probiotics left US NICUs after the FDA reclassified them, and NEC rates went up. This week Ben reviews the Connection Study, a 2,158 infant phase 3 trial of IBP-9414, a live biotherapeutic product containing Limosilactobacillus reuteri, run und...
#458 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Does holding during cooling change NICU outcomes in HIE?
Parents of babies undergoing therapeutic hypothermia often wait days before they can hold their child, and many never get the chance during cooling at all. This week on Journal Club, Daphna reviews a new Journal of Perinatology retrospective co...
#458 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Should late preterm infants born by cesarean receive prophylactic CPAP?
Late preterm babies born by cesarean fill our NICUs, and most of them are there for respiratory distress that resolves in a day or two. Could 20 minutes of CPAP in the operating room keep them out? This week on Journal Club, Ben and Daphna brea...
#457 - Are We Rethinking When and How We Give Surfactant (ft Dr. Roger Soll)
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 s...
#456 - 📑 Journal Club - The Complete Episode from August 1st 2026
Which babies with critical congenital heart disease face the highest risk of brain injury, and does earlier surgery actually help? Why is infant CHD mortality climbing again after years of decline, and who's most affected? Can a mother's cardio...
#456 - [Neo News] - 📌 Why Did the US Fund a Hepatitis B Trial That Withheld the Birth Dose?
In this episode of Neo News, Ben and Eli break down a troubling story in vaccine policy: an unsolicited $1.6 million CDC grant funding a Danish research group's trial in Guinea-Bissau, one designed to withhold or delay the hepatitis B birth dos...
#456 - [Journal Club] - 🫀 From The Heart - Do These Newborns Have Diastolic Dysfunction, or Just Different Physiology?
In this prospective study, Adrianne and Nim dig into an area with almost no normative pediatric data: right ventricular diastolic function. Comparing 57 infants with RV pressure overload after intervention for pulmonic stenosis or tetralogy of ...
#456 - [Journal Club] - 🫀 From The Heart - Why Does a Sicker Mom Sometimes Mean a Stronger Neonatal Heart?
In this small prospective pilot study, Adrianne and Nim explore a domain rarely discussed on rounds, how a mother's cardiovascular function in preeclampsia shapes her newborn's circulatory transition. Using maternal echo and neonatal electrical...
#456 - [Journal Club] - 🫀 From The Heart - Why Is CHD Mortality Rising Again After 15 Years of Progress?
In this retrospective national study, Adrianne and Nim look at 25 years of congenital heart disease mortality in the US using CDC WONDER data. Infant mortality remains staggeringly high (54 per 100,000), and after years of steady decline, it ha...
#456 - [Journal Club] - 🫀 From The Heart - Should an Abnormal Brain MRI Change the Decision to Operate in Critical CHD?
In this systematic review and meta-analysis, Nim and Adrianne dig into just how common brain injury really is in neonates with critical congenital heart disease. Pooling 31 studies spanning two decades, the authors found that nearly 70% of thes...
#455 - [Neo News] - Is Communication a Procedural Skill We're Failing to Train?
What if communication were treated as a procedure, something we train for and get feedback on, just like an intubation? In this episode of Neo News, Eli Cahan talks with Dr. Jessica Fry of Northwestern University and Lurie Children's Hosp...