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
887 episodes
#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...
#442 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Does combining EEG and MRI improve neurodevelopmental prognostication in preterm infants?
In this episode of Journal Club, we wrap up a marathon recording session with a deep dive into the world of neonatal neuroprognostication. Daphna reviews a systematic review and meta-analysis from Pediatric Neurology that evaluates whether comb...
#442 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Is a low Apgar score more concerning than a low umbilical pH in preemies?
Ben kicks things off with a major career update before we dive into a critical study from JAMA Network Open. We explore the predictive value of the five minute Apgar score when combined with umbilical artery pH in very preterm infants. While th...
#442 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Does 24 hour in house staffing decrease physician productivity metrics?
Is your NICU considering the shift to 24 hour in house attending coverage? In this episode of Journal Club, we explore a provocative brief communication from the Journal of Perinatology. Ben and Daphna discuss the impact of moving from home cal...
#442 - [Journal Club] - 📌 Does NIRS guided treatment improve clinical outcomes for extremely preterm infants?
In this episode of Journal Club, Ben and Daphna dive into the results of the NIRTURE trial, recently published in JAMA Network Open. Building on the lessons of SafeBoosC 3 , the NIRTURE investigators aimed to reduce the burden of cerebral hypox...
#441 - Is Two Years Enough? Fellowship Directors Respond to the ABP’s Proposed Training Overhaul
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 traini...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - What Goes Into Planning the Biggest Pediatric Conference in the World?
Dr. Daniel Rauch, PAS 2026 program chair, joins Ben for a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to pull off a conference of this scale — and what he's learned from this year's record-breaking attendance in Boston. He reflects on the sessions ...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Is the Neonatology Job Market About to Shift Dramatically in Fellows' Favor?
Dr. Benny Rossner, PGY-2 pediatrics resident and veteran physician recruiter with 15 years of experience building clinical teams across the country, joins Ben and Rupa for a candid look at the neonatology workforce from a side of the conversati...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Are We Ready for Gentle Hemodynamics the Way We Embraced Gentle Ventilation?
Dr. Gabriel Altit and Daniela Villegas from the NeoCardioLab at Montreal join Ben and Rupa to reflect on a packed PAS filled with hemodynamics science — from pulmonary hypertension phenotyping to heart-brain interactions in the golden hour. Dr....
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - When Is the Right Time to Talk to a Family About a Tracheostomy for BPD?
Dr. Kristen Leeman and Dr. Jonathan Levin join Ben to debrief a packed interactive session on tracheostomy timing and counseling for babies with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Using iterative cases and live audience polling, they mapp...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - What Does It Take to Build a World-Class NICU From the Ground Up?
Dr. Rangasamy Ramanathan, division chief at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children's Hospital and one of neonatology's most prolific investigators, joins Ben to share what's keeping him busy — 14 active clinical trials including studies on IGF-1 for lung...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - How Did One NICU Take 22-Weeker Survival From 12% to 72%?
Dr. Thais Queliz, neonatologist at Winnie Palmer Hospital in Orlando, presents ten years of data from one of the country's highest-volume programs caring exclusively for babies born at 22 to 24 weeks. She shares how survival rates for 22 and 23...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Do We Even Know What a Healthy Preterm Gut Looks Like on Ultrasound?
Dr. Indrani Bhattacharjee, neonatologist and POCUS program director at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, joins Ben to discuss a fascinating and largely unexplored frontier — intestinal ultrasound in healthy preterm infants. Rather than waiting fo...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Is LISA the Future of Surfactant Delivery for Premature Babies?
Dr. Surabhi Aggarwal, neonatologist at Stony Brook University, joins Ben and Rupa to share five years of experience building a LISA — Less Invasive Surfactant Administration — program from the ground up at her institution. She walks through the...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Could Donor Milk Cream Replace Dextrose Gel for Newborn Hypoglycemia?
Dr. Arpitha Chiruvolu, neonatologist and infant nutrition researcher, joins Ben to share three posters from this year's PAS covering two of her core research interests. She presents pilot data on using Prolacta human milk cream as an alternativ...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Could a Quarterly Injection Replace a Liver Transplant for This Rare Kidney Disease?
Dr. David Sas, pediatric nephrologist at Mayo Clinic, joins Ben to discuss primary hyperoxaluria type 1 — a rare but devastating genetic disease where the liver overproduces oxalate, flooding the kidneys with crystals and leading to end-stage k...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - What Does It Take to Build a Pediatric Transport Team From Scratch?
Dr. Kyle Willsey, pediatric critical care transport director at Cedars-Sinai, joins Daphna to discuss one of the least standardized corners of pediatric and neonatal medicine — critical care transport. With children's hospitals closing across t...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Is Gaming Addiction in Kids With ADHD About the Games or the Parenting?
Dr. Emily Wassmer, researcher at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, presents findings from one of the first studies to examine gaming addiction in young children ages 5 to 12 with ADHD diagnoses. Using a newly developed caregiver-report scree...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Are We Studying the Right Things the Right Way in Neonatology?
Dr. Lily Lou joins Daphna and Rupa to reflect on this year's Silverman Lecture at PAS — the annual honorary lecture of the AAP Section on Neonatal Perinatal Medicine — delivered by Dr. John Ioannidis of Boston, who turned the lens of research m...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Is the Real Fix to Neonatology Training Shorter Residency, Not Shorter Fellowship?
Dr. Satyan Lakshminrusimha, pediatric chair and neonatologist, joins Ben hot off the ONTPD meeting to share his perspective on the ABP fellowship reform debate — and it's more nuanced than a simple yes or no to a two-year fellowship. He argues ...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Are We Actually Delivering Good Bag Mask Ventilation in the Delivery Room?
Dr. Nathan Sundgren, neonatologist and NRP educator at Texas Children's Hospital, joins Ben to discuss one of the most deceptively difficult skills in neonatal resuscitation — effective bag mask ventilation. He shares findings from a fellowship...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - What If a Conference Actually Told You Both Sides of Every Controversy?
Dr. Matthew Saxonhouse, neonatologist at Atrium Health, joins Ben to discuss two initiatives designed to fill the gaps that traditional conferences often leave behind. The first is Neonatal Insights, a biennial meeting returning January 29-31, ...
#440 - 🔵 [PAS 2026] - Is There a Journal That Actually Lets Everyone in Neonatology Publish?
Dr. Mitchell Goldstein, neonatologist at Loma Linda University and editor-in-chief of Neonatology Today, joins Ben to share the story behind one of neonatology's most accessible and wide-reaching publications — a peer-reviewed, open-access jour...