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
909 episodes
#450 - 📑 [Journal Club] - 🫀From The Heart - The Complete Episode from July 4th 2026
Neonatal sepsis physiology, steroids, vasopressors, and moms.gov. A full week on The Incubator Journal Club.Adrianne and Nim open with a retrospective study from Toronto challenging the assumption that hypo...
#450 - [Neo News] - 📌 What Does the Launch of moms.gov Mean for Your Patients?
In this episode of Neo News, Ben and Eli discuss the federal government's Mother's Day press conference and the launch of moms.gov, a new website aimed at supporting new and expecting mothers. They examine what th...
#450 - [Journal Club] - 🫀 From The Heart - Is Dopamine Still Defensible as First-Line for Neonatal Septic Shock?
In this double-blind randomized controlled trial, Adrianne and Nim examine whether norepinephrine outperforms dopamine as a first-line vasoactive agent in neonates with fluid-refractory septic shock. The primary outcome, shock reversal at 30 mi...
#450 - [Journal Club] - 🫀 From The Heart - Does Early Hydrocortisone Actually Move the Needle in Fluid-Refractory Shock?
In this double-blind randomized controlled trial from northern India, Nim and Adrianne review whether early hydrocortisone reduces 14-day all-cause mortality in preterm infants with fluid-refractory shock. The primary outcome showed no statisti...
#450 - [Journal Club] - 🫀From The Heart - When Nitric Oxide Fails: Is the Left Ventricle the Culprit in Septic Preterm Infants?
In this retrospective single-center study from Toronto, Adrianne and Nim explore the echo findings of preterm infants with septic shock and hypoxemic respiratory failure. Contrary to the common assumption that elevated pulmonary vascular resist...
#449 - What Do Division Heads Think About the Shortened Fellowship Proposal?
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. S...
#448 - Are NICU Outcomes Actually Getting Better Over Time? (ft Dr. Joseph Kaempf)
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 Provid...
#447 - 📑 Journal Club - The Complete Episode from June 13th 2026
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...
#447 - [Neo News] - 📌 - Why Are Doctors Flocking to HBO Max's The Pitt?
In this episode of Neo News, Ben and Eli discuss the cultural phenomenon of HBO Max’s new hit medical drama, The Pitt. Sparked by an insightful critique in The New Yorker by Dr. Dhruv Khullar, they dive into why this Noah Wyle-led series is cap...
#447 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Is a Five-Day Antibiotic Course Enough to Treat UTIs in the NICU?
Is five days of antibiotics enough to treat a urinary tract infection in a NICU infant? In this Journal Club episode, Ben and Daphna review a single-center study from Nationwide Children's Hospital examining adherence and safety of a five-day a...
#447 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Does Extended CPAP Reduce Intermittent Hypoxemia in Stable Preterm Infants?
What happens to intermittent hypoxemia when you keep a stable preterm infant on CPAP for two extra weeks? In this Journal Club episode, Ben and Daphna review a secondary analysis from the Journal of Pediatrics by Mamidi and McEvoy. Among 95 inf...
#447 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Are we missing UTIs in neonates hospitalized for unexplained jaundice?
In this Journal Club episode, Daphna reviews a retrospective cohort study from Istanbul examining clinical, laboratory, and ultrasound factors associated with UTI in neonates hospitalized for unexplained hyperbilirubinemia. Among 96 term and ne...
#447 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Is phototherapy doing more harm than good in very preterm infants?
In this Journal Club episode, Ben and Daphna review a nationwide Swedish cohort study examining the association between phototherapy duration and neonatal outcomes in very preterm infants (22 to 31 weeks). The study’s primary outcome, late neon...
#446 - Is Bedside Transcatheter PDA Closure Ready for Your NICU?
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 d...
#445 - 📑 Journal Club - The Complete Episode from May 30th 2026
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 r...
#445 - [Neo News] - 📌 Are Regulatory Roadblocks Threatening the Future of Neonatal Vaccines?
In this fast-paced episode of Neo News, Eli and Ben tackle the rapidly shifting landscape of vaccine regulation and economics in the US. They discuss recent political maneuvers surrounding the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and how ...
#445 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Are we missing dysphagia in very preterm infants before they leave the NICU?
How often are we missing dysphagia in our most vulnerable NICU patients? In this episode of Journal Club, Daphna reviews a retrospective cohort study from the Journal of Perinatology examining the incidence and risk factors of dysphagia confirm...
#445 - What Can Japan Teach Us About Treating Human Milk Fortifier as a Drug? (Part 2)
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...
#445 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Does an exclusive human milk diet improve growth in very low birth weight infants? (Part 1)
Japan has some of the best survival rates for extremely preterm infants in the world, yet feeding practices there look very different from what many of us are used to. In this episode of Journal Club, Ben reviews the JASMINE trial, a multicente...
#445 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Can a few drops of breast milk in a preterm infant's nose actually improve cerebral oxygenation?
Could putting a few drops of breast milk in a preterm infant's nose actually improve cerebral oxygenation? In this episode of Journal Club, Daphna reviews a randomized controlled trial from the European Journal of Pediatrics investigating the p...
#445 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Can symptom-based dosing cut hospitalization time for babies with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome?
One infant is diagnosed with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome every 27 minutes, and rates are rising. In this episode of Journal Club, Ben and Daphna review the Optimized NOW randomized clinical trial, a landmark multicenter study published ...
#444 - Can a Beanie Protect NICU Infants from Harmful Noise While Keeping Them Connected to Their Parents?
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 Ga...
#443 - Could NeoGuide Be the Answer to the NICU’s Variability Problem?
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 n...
#442 - 📑 Journal Club - The Complete Episode from May 16th 2026
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 c...
#442 - [Neo News] - 📌 What Is the Ripple Effect of Defunding Disease Surveillance?
In this episode of Neo News, Ben and Eli tackle the recent, quiet—but massive—public health funding cuts implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services. With $600 million pulled back from four targeted states and additional CDC bloc...