2024 Speakers & Topics
Dr. Jaeger is Coordinator of the Consensus Committee on Infant and Family Centered Developmental Care. She has served in this role since the inception of the committee in 2015. Dr. Jaeger received a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University, and Master of Science and Doctorate of Nursing Practice degrees from The Ohio State University. She has served in multiple professional nursing roles including Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, NICU and NNP Manager, Administrator of the State of Ohio Maternity Licensure Program, Neonatal Services Administrator, Educator, Faculty, and Consultant. She is a retiree of the United States Army.
Dr. Carole Kenner is the Chief Executive Officer, Council of International Neonatal Nurses, Inc. (COINN) and Dean & Professor at The College of New Jersey School of Nursing & Health Sciences. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, a Master of Science in neonatal/perinatal nursing, and a doctorate in nursing. She has authored more than 150 journal articles and 40 textbooks.
Dr. Carole Kenner's career is dedicated to nursing education and to the health of neonates and their families. Her professional achievements include:
- Serves on the Consensus Committee of Neonatal Intensive Care Design Standards, which sets recommendations for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit designs globally, the Gravens Infant and Family Centered Developmental Care Task Force creating standards and competencies.
- She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), a National Academies of Practice fellow, and Academy of Nursing Education Fellow, past president of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) and founding President of the Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN).
- She serves on Every Newborn Action Plan- sets metrics for neonatal outcomes globally (UNICEF, WHO, USAID, UN Foundation partnership)
- She received the 2011 Sigma Theta Tau Audrey Hepburn Award for Contributions to the Health and Welfare of Children internationally.
- She received the 2021 AWHONN Excellence in Leadership Award.
Neuroprotective Care and inclusion of families as care partners, has been around for years, yet with COVID, restrictions were put in place regarding a family’s presence in a newborn intensive care unit. Post-pandemic some of these policies have not changed. Zero Separation is the goal and developmentally supportive infant- and family-centered care is the frame. This care is essential for positive growth, development, and emotional family support.
Join us to learn more about what developmental care is and the impact of the NICU environment on infants and families. We'll also look at current standards, competencies, and frameworks that support developmental care and parents as care partners and how you can work towards implementing them.
Dr. Christine L. Kan, OTD(Doctorate of Occupational Therapy), OTR/L, IBCLC, is a neonatal occupational therapist and lactation consultant specializing in breastfeeding and feeding therapy for medically complex infants. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a doctorate in occupational therapy in 2013, focusing on feeding interventions for children with special needs. Dr. Kan is trained in the Beckman Oral Motor Protocol, Infant and Pediatric Neurodevelopmental training (NDT), Neonatal Oral Motor and Assessment Scale (NOMAS), Neonatal Touch and Massage Certification (NTMC), and holds advanced practice certification in feeding, eating, and swallowing (SWC). She works part-time as a neonatal occupational therapist at the level 3 NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) in Van Nuys and owns a private practice in South Pasadena.
She is passionate about supporting breastfeeding dyads of premature infants, infants with reflux, infants with tethered oral tissues, and infants with cleft/lip and palate. Dr. Kan has feeding experience with cleft lip/palate, Down syndrome, clavicle fractures, failure to thrive, torticollis/plagiocephaly, cardiac and pulmonary diagnoses, neonatal abstinence withdrawal, and autism.
Christine has three children and is currently tandem nursing her toddler and infant.
Preterm infants spend a significant amount of time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) mastering the intricacies of both enteral tolerance and oral feeding skills. The prerequisite for discharge often hinges on achieving independent feeding, typically through bottle-feeding. The journey toward oral feeding is a developmental continuum, contingent upon the maturation of the intricate suck-swallow-breathe coordination.
Presently, the methods employed in transitioning premature infants to oral feeds exhibit heterogeneity, lack standardization, and heavily rely on the cultural and experiential background of the caregiver. Notably, breastfeeding tends to be accorded lower priority and is infrequently employed during this transitional phase. The discharge of an exclusively breast-fed infant from the NICU is an even rarer occurrence.
This lecture delves into the developmental milestones that mark the transition to oral feedings, explores current best practices supporting the shift to full oral feeds, and outlines effective strategies for promoting direct breastfeeding during an infant's hospitalization. By gaining insights from current literature on effective oral feeding practices and integrating supportive breastfeeding measures, we strive to elevate breastfeeding rates for the preterm infant.
Fabiana Bacchini is the Executive Director of the Canadian Premature Babies Foundation. She is a journalist and the published author of From Surviving to Thriving, a Mother's Journey Through Infertility, Loss and Miracles.
After years struggling with infertility, she welcomed her first child in 2009. In 2012, pregnant with twin boys, she was introduced to the NICU world after delivering at 26 weeks gestation. Her surviving son was in the NICU for 5 months and was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy.Fabiana's family participated in the study of Family Integrated Care (FICare) while in the NICU, which led her to become a parent advisor at Mount Sinai Hospital, an ambassador for FICare having travelled across Canada and other countries to share her experience with this model of care. She has become a strong voice and advocate for premature babies and their families.
Currently, Fabiana serves as an advisor on the Steering Committee for FICare, on the Critical Care Services Ontario (ONICAC group), Child-Bright Network, EFCNI Parent-Patient Advisory Board. She's been involved in several research projects worldwide and is a member of the CIHR-Institute Advisory Board for the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health.
While the NICU represents a temporary phase in a lifetime, FiCare lays enduring foundations for post-discharge care. Parents engaged in this model of care report increased confidence in taking care of their baby, and decreased stress and anxiety at discharge.
This presentation argues that the NICU, crucial for saving lives, must also serve as a beginning for thriving. Thriving involves holistic family well-being. Adequate support within the hospital becomes a cornerstone for navigating the road ahead. The repercussions of preterm birth, traumatic delivery, and NICU goes beyond discharge, emphasizing the need for families to be part of their babies’ care team in hospital.
Jim Thigpen has been a pediatric clinical pharmacist for 30 years and is currently an associate professor of pharmacy at East Tennessee State University Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. When he began his training at MUSC in Charleston, SC, they were investigating Survanta and he has been witness to and a participant in the evolving world of neonatology since. He has spoken at several neonatal nursing conferences over the years and enjoys helping other practitioners learn about and apply pharmacotherapy in this special population.
While the limit for possible survival for premature neonates has improved over the past few decades, the knowledge of how these special patients handle medications has not kept up. This can lead to possible sub-optimal as well as toxic drug concentrations and subsequent adverse drug effects. Most of the literature does not venture into the premature ( 40 weeks gestation), let alone those that are extremely ( 28 weeks) premature neonates and clinicians are faced wih decisions based on limited information.
Drugs that are affected by the major CYP enzyme systems are poorly studied and mature at different rates, making assumptions on drug therapy common. As only 40% of the most commonly used medicaions have FDA labeling in infants, information on the premature is even less so. The challenges of performing pharmacokinetic studies in this population does not make this a simple solution. We will discuss what is known and what challenges lie ahead.
Jola Berkman is the Provincial Clinical Coordinator of Newborn Care for Perinatal Services, BC, Canada. She trained as a NICU RN in South Africa before moving to Canada and integrates lessons learned from the global south and global north in her work. She collaborated with a provincial working group to review and transform the care of newborns exposed to substances during pregnancy in British Columbia. This work included the development of an online learning module and practice resources for healthcare providers, a parent resource, and facilitating webinars to introduce the Eat, Sleep, and Console (ESC) model of care.
She continues to support the implementation of the ESC model of care in BC and supports nurse leaders and change-makers in adopting the program across Canada. Jola enjoys time at home on Protection Island, BC, with her family when she is not working.
Worldwide, the use of illicit substances is increasing, including in the pregnant population. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome is an unintended consequence of this phenomenon. Recently, several institutions adopted a novel approach to managing Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, focusing on functional assessments and supporting the newborn exposed to substances to achieve normal eating, sleeping, consoling, and weight gain milestones.
Peer-reviewed studies strongly suggest that this new model of care decreases the length of stay in the hospital and the need for medical management for withdrawal symptoms with no documented short-term adverse effects. Learn more about the components of the the Eat, Sleep and Console Assessment and the reasoning behind them and how to approach changing the model of care in your own unit.
Lenora Marcellus is a Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She has practiced as an RN for over 35 years in a range of maternal-neonatal and educational settings and roles. Her research interests include perinatal substance use, neonatal opioid withdrawal, supporting infants in foster care, and supporting young families. She is a co-investigator in the British Columbia Healthy Connections Project, a multi-year provincial RCT of the Nurse-Family Partnership program for young, first time mothers and their children.
She was a long-time volunteer with a local Moms and Mentors group supporting young families. Her research has been published in a range of journals, including Advances in Neonatal Care, the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, the International Journal of Health Equity and Qualitative Health Research.
Young parents with an infant in the NICU are coping with multiple transitions, including to adulthood and parenthood within the context of the stress of having an ill infant. Adolescent and young parents have also historically experienced stigma and age-related discrimination in the health system. Health care providers can contribute to positive adaptations through providing care that is strengths-based, family-centered, developmentally-appropriate, non-stigmatizing, and trauma-informed.
Dr. Leslie Parker is a Professor in the College of Nursing and an adjunct Professor in the College of Medicine. She has had an active practice as a nurse practitioner in the neonatal intensive care unit for the last 30 years where she cares for critically ill infants and their families. Dr. Parker directs one of the few research programs dedicated to developing strategies to improve the nutritional health of premature and critically ill infants. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and distinguished by interdisciplinary team science bridging nursing, medicine, microbiology, and public health across the University of Florida and globally.
Dr. Parker's research focuses on two important areas of neonatal care;
(1) Optimal delivery of nutrition
(2) Increasing infant consumption of breast milk by improving lactation success in their mothers. Because optimal nutrition including high doses of mother's own breast milk decreases the risk of potentially preventable serious complications, her work has made significant and long-lasting contributions to improving the health of premature and critically ill infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Dr. Parker has developed nutritional strategies that health care providers have integrated into their daily practice thus improving short and long-term health outcomes of the most vulnerable patients.
This presentation will provide an overview of FT contamination and the evidence surrounding the optimal FT dwell time to decrease FT contamination and improve infant health.
Dr. Narvey began his training in Pediatrics at the University of Manitoba in
Winnipeg where he completed a year of further training in Neonatology. This was followed by two years of Neonatal fellowship at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Afterwards he
began his career as a Neonatologist in the same city and over the 6 years he spent
there, his career included both clinical and administrative duties including 4 years as the
Fellowship Program Director and two years as the Medical Director for a level II unit.
In
late 2010 he accepted a position in Winnipeg to become the Section Head of
Neonatology and continues to hold this post. In 2016 he took on the additional role of
Medical Director of the Child Health Transport Team.
In 2015 he became a member of the Canadian Pediatric Society's Fetus and Newborn Committee and in 2019 took over as Chair of the same and remained in this role until May 2024.
Topic: Hyperbilirubinemia: Balancing Safety With Undertreatment - [View Abstract]
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) moves through the world each year. What do we know about it's impact on babies and children and what can be done to minimize the impact on babies and their families? This talk will cover information on the impacts on the health of our population and importantly cover recent updates on the management of RSV bronchiolitis including preventative vaccination programs available to ameliorate the impact of this condition.
Jaundice is one of the most common occurrences seen in the newborn. Controversy exists pertaining to how aggressive to be in terms of management. Recent evidence will be explored looking at potential risks of treatment and in this context examining the new AAP statement on the same. The talk will also reflect on the Canadian response and concerns to the new statement and how the Canadian Pediatric Society will respond to the new curves in use.
Dr. Nhu Tran is a nurse scientist with a goal of improving developmental outcomes and health equity of vulnerable neonates. Her role blends direct patient care (as an RN in the NICU at Children's Hospital Los Angeles) and research (as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Southern California). She is certified as a critical care registered nurse in the NICU and as a Clinical Research Professional. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Nursing Research, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Southern California Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.
Currently, her research aims to identify the mechanism of brain injury and developmental delay in infants with congenital heart defects (CHD). Specifically, she is examining the longitudinal association of dysregulated brain blood flow and developmental delays in infants with congenital heart disease compared with healthy controls. By doing so, her research can modulate or tailor early interventions to improve outcomes of high-risk neonates and children.
Cardiac issues are common in preterm infants which means it’s crucial for care providers to be knowledgeable about the presentation and clinical management of arrythmias and heart defects. Learn more about common neonatal dysrhythmias (e.g., supraventricular tachycardia, heart block), their clinical presentation and how to treat them. We will also look at the common neonatal heart defects, how to stabilize the neonate before intervention, and perioperative clinical care.
Dr. Nils Bergman is a consulting Public Health Physician, with specific expertise and interest in maternal and neonatal health care. His qualifications include: MB ChB 1980 University of Cape Town South Africa, equivalent to MD in the USA; Diploma in Child Health in Developing Countries 1987, Uppsala Sweden; Masters in Public Health (cum laude), 1999 University of Western Cape, South Africa; Doctor of Medicine in Clinical Pharmacology, 1997 University of Zimbabwe, equivalent to PhD in the USA.
Dr. Bergman has worked in Zimbabwe (LIC), South Africa (MIC) and Sweden (HIC), hence he is able to bring a global perspective to his research. He contributed to initiating the Immediate KMC Study, and was a Principal Investigator in the WHO Study group that conducted this RCT and recently published results. He has developed and published an underlying scientific rationale that explains the very unexpected findings of profoundly lowered mortality from immediate and continuous skin-to-skin contact to very low birth weight newborns, summarized as "nurturescience".
Nurturescience is derived out of developmental neuroscience, and the key aspects that constitute nurture will be presented, followed by the adverse consequences of maternal-infant separation. The key deliverable is that Nurturescience expressed as Zero Separation optimizes the development of resilience, which is fundamental for health and better outcomes. In contrast, parental absence is the essence of “toxic stress”, and the currently understood mechanisms for maladaptation will be described. To highlight the novelty of nurturescience to current neuroscience, a direct comparison will be provided.
Nurturescience is the underlying theoretical and scientific rationale for the Immediate Parent-Infant Skin-TO-Skin Study (IPISTOSS) conducted in high income countries, and the Immediate Kangaroo Mother Care Study (iKMC), conducted in middle and low income countries: both will be described. IPISTOSS provides direct clinical evidence of mechanisms, and iKMC study lowered mortality by 25%, with decreased sepsis as primary secondary outcome. The results are profoundly challenging to the current paradigm of health care, and a way forward will be suggested.
Dr. Sonal Patel is a pediatrician, neonatologist, & breastfeeding specialist who founded NayaCare in 2018. NayaCare is a home health clinic focused on improving postpartum care. Dr. Patel has written several articles on this subject published in Scary Mommy, Kevin MD, and Colorado Sun. She wrote her first book, The Doctor and Her Black Bag that examines maternal mortality in historical and personal context and solutions to reduce maternal mortality. She is also a co-founder and co-executive director of Center for 4th Trimester Care, a national physician-led non-profit with the mission of improving postpartum care. She is also a TEDx speaker. In her presentation titled “The Economics of the 4th Trimester,” Dr. Patel explores the economic impact of losing moms during the 4th trimester, a solution that can reduce maternal mortality, and thus positively impact our national economy. Lastly, she has co-created a breastfeeding toolkit helping mothers of premature babies achieve their breastfeeding goals: Small Steps, BIG Gains.
Small Steps, BIG Gains is a breastfeeding toolkit geared to NICU breastfeeding dyads. This toolkit was developed by a neonatologist, neonatal nurse partitioner, and neonatal nurse that understand the challenges, culture, workflow of the NICU in juxtaposition to the immense benefits of a mother's own breastmilk to reduce NEC, promote growth, and decrease length of stay. This toolkit starts the minute a NICU mom is identified to have a premature delivery and goes beyond into the the outpatient world. This toolkit is a form of transparent communication between NICU moms/families and the NICU team in achieving the goals of breastfeeding.
Dr. Speakers Full Name
Speaker Credentials
Annet Mulder first became interested in breastfeeding in the year 2000, when she became a mother for the first time. During and because of her own breastfeeding experiences, in 2002 she became a volunteer with the Dutch breastfeeding Organization and in 2008 sat for and passed the exam administered by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners. As an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, she now
Annet Mulder first became interested in breastfeeding in the year 2000, when she became a mother for the first time. During and because of her own breastfeeding experiences, in 2002 she became a volunteer with the Dutch breastfeeding Organization text text text text more name mulder first became interested in breastfeeding in the year 2000, when she became.
Dr. Speakers Full Name
Speaker Credentials