Our 99nicu community has more than 7,000 members from 76 countries. We have been around longer than Facebook has been in Europe, and almost as long as Twitter has existed at all — and despite being "old school", we have persevered. Many predicted that forums would disappear once social media took over. But looking at where the world is going, it feels more and more like we need spaces we can rely on — grassroots, independent, and not subject to the whims of algorithms or platform owners.

And honestly? Sometimes we all just need a place that isn't endless doom scrolling. Yes, you can justify it with "but there's educational content there too" — but what is your actual retention of something you had less than three seconds to grasp before the next thing came along?

We love meeting you in person — whether at 99nicu meetups or other conferences. It matters, putting faces to usernames. Over the years we have had the chance to meet many of you, whether wearing our academic, clinical, or entrepreneurial hats. Later this year we will meet some of you in France, where we are partnering with the CEPAS conference — and we are genuinely looking forward to what we have planned there.

But our global village is much bigger than whoever can make it to a conference. We span continents, and not everyone can travel all the time — after all, somebody has to stay on call. So this year, we want to connect more.

As part of our 20th anniversary, we want to organize a few informal online meetings. We want to hear from you — your thoughts on where 99nicu should go, projects we could take on together, and how you can get involved.

The first meeting is on May 7th. Details are available in our Community Calendar. Save the date!

- Kat from 99nicu

Submit your research now for the opportunity to present your work at the Congress of the European Paediatric Academic Societies, taking place 28 - 31 October 2026 in Lyon, France.

Submitting an abstract also gives you the opportunity to apply for prestigious investigator awards:

• EAP Young Investigator Award

• ESPR Bengt Robertson Award

• ESPR Early Career Investigator Prize

In addition, ESPR Travel Grants are available for early career investigators whose abstracts are accepted, helping support attendance at CEPAS 2026.

We will be there too , let ut meet up in Lyon!

Reading full discussions now requires login. Questions remain visible to everyone, but replies and expert responses are members-only.

Why? Our members share knowledge under their real identities. We believe readers should be part of the community too. Registration is free, takes under a minute, and unlocks 20 years of peer-to-peer neonatal knowledge.

Key points:

• Homepage and news stay open

• Questions are visible; answers require login

• Your profile is visible to members — be thoughtful about what you share

• Never include patient-identifying information in discussions

• The platform grows when you participate — share your experience

Bottom line: The questions are open. The expert knowledge is for members. If you're not registered yet, join us — it's free, quick, and connects you to neonatal colleagues in 75+ countries.

You might have noticed while browsing 99nicu recently: reading the full discussions now requires you to be logged in.

The first post of any thread remain visible to everyone, like the news updates and feeds. But to read replies and join the conversation, you'll need to log in as a member.

We know this adds a step. Here's why we're doing it, and how we're working to make it worthwhile.

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Why This Matters?

For 20 years, 99nicu is built on professional exchange by NICU staff. When you contribute here, you're part of a community where many members use their real names and affiliations when sharing their clinical experience, knowledge, and personal insights. Our members are willing to be known, and we believe the readers should be, too.

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What You Need to Know

Registration is free and always will be. No fees, no paywalls, no corporate gatekeeping. Just a basic account, that takes one minute to register for, and then you just need to await our manual approval of your account (usually within 24 hours).

Homepage News , Blogs and Calendar remain open. Many sections remain open/public for browsing without logging in, including the Homepage, the Latest Research feed.

Discussion Forum Topics are visible to everyone. You can see the first post in all Discussions, what colleagues are asking, but to read answers and expert responses, you need to log in.

Posting and commenting requires login. Only members can contribute to discussions.

We don't verify institutional emails. You can register with any email address. We trust you to be part of this professional community in good faith, but please remember to be thoughtful about what and how you post. Your profile information is visible to other members.

Be mindful when sharing patient-related information. While clinical discussions are essential to our community, you must respect patient confidentiality and integrity. Never include information that could potentially identify a patient or family. When discussing specific cases, parental consent is recommended. You are responsible for ensuring your posts comply with your national laws and regulations regarding patient privacy. See our [privacy policy] and [registration terms] for details.

Stay logged in with the 99nicu app. Available for iOS and Android, the app keeps you connected without needing to sign in every time. If you visit us with your mobile browser, you'll see a prompt: "View in the app: a better way to browse." It's a simple, browser-style app that lets you keep 99nicu on your phone homescreen — no notifications, no instant messages. Just at the reach of your tap when you want to browse and interact.

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The Platform Grows When Your Activity Grows

99nicu thrives when you participate!

The value of this community isn't just in what you can read — the value is built from people sharing their questions, comments and expertise. Therefore we encourage you to ask questions and share your experiences.

Remember: what seems like a "basic, normal thing" to you might be genuinely eye-opening for another clinician somewhere else in the world. We all have unique perspectives shaped by the context where we work, what we've seen, and who we've learned from. So don't hold back!

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Help Us Get This Right

We want to make this transition as smooth as possible. So we're asking:

What can we do to make logging in easier for you? Is the registration process clear? Do you have any issues recovering your password?

Let us know in the comments, or send us a message- we're here for you!

See you inside!

Kat from the 99nicu Team

We’re exploring the idea of adding a Job Board to 99nicu — a dedicated space where NICUs and neonatal organizations could post job opportunities for nurses, neonatologists, fellows, researchers, and other neonatal professionals.

Because 99nicu already brings together thousands of neonatal professionals globally, a job board could create a natural bridge between NICUs seeking staff and clinicians looking for their next role.

Of course, the most important question is whether this would be useful for you, the community.

Would you use a 99nicu Job Board?
Would your NICU consider posting job opportunities there?

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Share your feedback in the comments and help shape what the future of 99nicu could look like.

CEPAS is an international conference dedicated to advancing knowledge and collaboration in neonatal and pediatric care, a new biennial meeting of the European Academy of Paediatrics (EAP) and the European Society for Paediatric Research (ESPR). In addition, the Global Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants (GFCNI) is co-organiser.

Through this partnership, 99NICU will help amplify the reach and discussions of CEPAS within our global neonatal community.

In the lead-up to the conference, 99NICU will promote CEPAS across our social media channels to help spread awareness and encourage participation. During the conference, members of the 99NICU team will be present on site, host a dedicated 99NICU session, and provide live coverage of selected sessions through social media, sharing insights and key takeaways with the wider community.

We look forward to working together with the CEPAS team to support collaboration, learning, and innovation in neonatal care.

Learn more about the conference at cepas.org.

Some of you might have already noticed our 99nicu page has been going through small improvements. We keep thinking about how to make this page more friendly for you, our users. What would it take to make us a page you visit often, or maybe even your starting page?

Last week I implemented an RSS feed with the newest papers in neonatal medicine. As 99nicu, we cannot guarantee you access to full texts, but at least we can show you new research being published every single day—for the betterment of neonatal care.

Living in Europe and communicating in English almost everywhere, I never even considered that 99nicu might not be accessible enough for people who simply don't use English. I'm thankful to our dear @Mariana Oliveira who opened my eyes and encouraged me to find solutions to make our page more accessible for non-English speakers.

So, first of all—in the bottom right corner, you will find a blue "Translate" button. This is a whole page translation powered by Google Translate that will allow you to browse the page in any language you choose. Roam around and explore our content in the language you feel most comfortable with—you're welcome.

Second—underneath each post and reply to a post, you will find a button "Translate", which will give you an opportunity to choose a language. This will translate that post to your chosen language. This way, you can participate in the conversation in any language you feel comfortable with, and other users can translate your post to their language of preference. Right now the languages to choose from are limited to 12 (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and English), but we can add as many as you like—just let us know.

We're doing our best here, without an army of social media, IT and marketing experts—but honestly, it's been fun figuring out these improvements for you. I'd love to hear your feedback: what else can we do to make 99nicu work better for you? Drop your ideas in the comments or send me a message. You can help us in this mission by visiting our page, being an active part of our community, and telling us what you need. And if you like what we do, you can become a 99nicu Society Member (https://99nicu.org/subscriptions/) for 10 EUR/year to keep our servers alive.

All the best,

Kat

When I first helped build 99NICU in 2006, it came from a very simple need: a safe place to talk about neonatal care with other health care professionals. Not just to exchange information, like over email, but create a community space to think, question and learn together from real clinical experience. At the time, those kinds of conversations were harder to find online, due to the immature technology. Today, that challenge feels even more familiar, but for other reasons.

Many of us now rely on large social media platforms for professional connection. They’re convenient, fast, and always there. But they were never designed for careful clinical discussion. Algorithms decide what gets seen, conversations disappear as quickly as they appear, and the focus is often on confirmation and engagement (likes!) rather than substance. For neonatal care, where nuance, trust, and context matter, that model simply doesn’t work very well.

99NICU was created as an alternative to that. From the beginning, it has been built by neonatal professionals, for neonatal professionals, with no commercial agenda driving the conversations. We have a non-profit structure because independence matters.

What makes me most proud, all these years later, is not the platform itself, but the community behind it. Moderators, developers, and contributors are all volunteering NICU staff, colleagues who care deeply about neonatal care and about maintaining an online space where knowledge grow over time.

99NICU is not “social media” in the usual sense. It is a professional community reclaimed — a shared space we collectively own and shape.

Last but not least, being independent implies that we need support in a crowd-funding way. Please consider to donate 10 EUR per year to keep our servers running, visit this page to do it today!

We, being neonatal health care professionals, are much aware of the many unmet needs for preterm newborns.

But, for the larger context, there is still much to do, creating awareness of the large public health challenge to reduce the burden of preterm birth.

If you have some time today, join the WHO webinar about the launch of a new global clinical practice guide for Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). Register here!

Vicky is outstanding in every sense of the word—not only exceptional, but truly standing out from conventional boundaries. Operating at the edges of traditional nursing roles, never quite fitting into a single box, and that's precisely what makes her extraordinary. Her willingness to be an outlier—to stand outside the expected—is what allows her to see and achieve what others might miss.

Vicky, we couldn't be more proud to see your uniqueness recognized beyond our 99nicu community. Well deserved!

First of all, the Preemie voices videos, meeting some of the preemie participants who wrote the inspiring letters in “Preemie Voices” book by Dr Saroj Saigal. Both videos, from 2014 and 2024, are added to the Links Directory but also embedded directly below.

Our second recommendation is to follow Neonatology Now, a podcast hosted by European School of Neonatology. The most recent episode is a very interesting interview with Prof Barbara Schmidt.

Join on August 1 at 1 PM ET for a special Preemie Chat featuring expert talks from Dr. Marianna Gonzalez @Mariana Oliveira , presenting the Brazilian POP-MOM protocol for early oral exposure to mother’s milk; Dr. Erin Hamilton Spence, who will explore the clinical and emotional impact of milk as medicine; Dr. Sharon Unger who will focus on the foundational role of human milk in shaping the early microbiome of preterm infants. and Dr. Prakeshkumar Shah, who will share new data on neurodevelopmental outcomes related to feeding practices in the NICU.

Join live on CPBF's YouTube, Facebook, or X channels (recording available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgxy9oMVhTg)

While the initiative seems to originate in the current US context, we all know that science is essential for improving public health of infants world wide.

As an organisation connecting health care professionals in a global network, we share the values behind this campaign. It may seem like an obvious position that science is instrumental for evidence-based practices in NICUs. However, we experience a time in history where high-pitched opinions want to change the narrative about meaningful public health strategies to reduce the disease burden of newborns.

Therefore, the #BabiesNeedScience campaign is a timely initiative that we fully support. We want to encourage all 99nicu members to join this campaign, by speaking out why #BabiesNeedScience, on this web site and in your social media channels. Support and follow AAPs example.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DIsjikrxc4h/

Please use carefully 😀

The Close Collaboration with Parents training program has been transforming neonatal care across multiple countries. As the program prepares for its first international conference in Lithuania, we spoke with Sari Ahlqvist-Björkroth, one of the program's creators, about its origins, evolution, and future.

What inspired the creation of the Close Collaboration with Parents program?

"Three things inspired the creation of the program," Sari explains. "First was my professional commitment to infant mental health. I started researching this field in the 90's for my master's thesis, which helped me understand the power of early parent-infant relationships. Second was my personal experience—the birth of my third son as a preemie. And third was meeting Professor Zack Boukydis and Liisa Lehtonen, who shared the same passion to improve infant and parent care in the NICU context."

Could you explain the core principles of the program and how it has evolved since its inception at Turku University Hospital?

"The Close Collaboration with Parents is a systematic educational program that transforms how neonatal professionals communicate with parents and support the parent-infant relationship," Sari explains. "What makes our approach unique is that we train entire units rather than individual staff members.”

The program unfolds through four evidence-based phases:

" First, staff develop skills in infant observation, learning to recognize each baby's unique preferences and needs, and communicating their observations with colleagues. Second, we introduce joint staff-parent observations to create collaborative care plans. Staff learn active listening techniques that help them value parents' insights about their babies. Third, staff learn to conduct semi-structured CLIP-I discussion that explore parents' journeys to parenthood. This fosters empathy and enables truly personalized support for each parent-infant relationship. Finally, we integrate parents into all aspects of decision-making—from daily care to medical rounds and discharge planning. We begin preparing for the transition home early, tailoring the process to each family's specific situation."

Sari emphasizes the program's practical approach: "While we provide theoretical content through e-learning and lectures, the heart of our method is experiential learning. Staff practice their new skills at the bedside with real families under the guidance of local mentors who have completed the training themselves. These mentors, alongside unit leadership, drive the implementation process."

Since its development at Turku University Hospital (2009-2012), the program has evolved significantly:

"The program has undergone several key refinements," Sari explains. " Supervision has been streamlined to focus on mentors and leadership rather than the entire staff, making better use of resources. The shared decision-making component has been strengthened through the incorporation of medical round observations. Documentation requirements have been added to ensure program fidelity, along with systems for continuous support to local mentors and leaders. For international implementation, an e-learning platform now standardizes theoretical content across different settings. Perhaps most exciting is our newest development—establishing our first designated training center, enabling one unit to train others within their country. This represents a significant step toward sustainable growth and wider adoption of family-centered care practices."

What motivated you to organize this first international conference in Lithuania?

"Before COVID-19, we organized annual national seminars for units that had implemented the program or were interested in it," Sari recalls. "When thinking about restarting these gatherings, we realized that since the intervention has expanded internationally, our 'seminar' should be international as well.

Our Finnish Rotary partners also encouraged us by offering financial support. Rotary International has supported the training of two NICUs—one in Riga, Latvia, and one in Pardubice, Czech Republic. They recognized that our program shares their values and wanted to continue their support by sponsoring this conference, which is why it's free of charge."

How many countries have participated in the program, and is it adaptable to different healthcare systems and cultural contexts?

"To date, units from 10 countries have implemented the program," Sari states proudly. "It has been implemented in 25 NICUs and six labor and delivery units. Its successful implementation in diverse cultural contexts, from South Korea to Norway, demonstrates its adaptability.

What makes the program so flexible is its structure. We provide the bedside practice and reflection framework that helps unit staff become aware of their family-centered practices and encourages them to innovate better approaches. A key aspect of our philosophy is that we don't impose standardized solutions from the outside. Instead, the program creates a framework where staff can discover what works best in their specific environment.

"One of our core principles," Sari emphasizes, "is that the program does not dictate change on the unit. The practice changes are decided by the staff themselves, based on the feedback they receive from parents during bedside practices. This bottom-up approach ensures new practices are directly adapted to each unit's unique context and cultural setting, making them more likely to be embraced and sustained over time."

At the conference, we'll have presentations from many different cultural settings, including Japan, South Korea, Israel, Czech Republic, Norway, Finland, and the Baltic countries."

What specific challenges do neonatal units face when implementing family-centered care practices, and how will the conference address them?

"Resources are probably the biggest challenge for most units," Sari acknowledges. "The implementation is based on the whole multiprofessional staff receiving training or, more accurately, mentoring from local mentors. This mentoring, which is mostly one-on-one, requires additional resources. At the conference, you'll hear about different implementation solutions.

Sustainability of change is also a common concern. This will be one of the main topics at the conference. Units that have been implementing for some time will report on how they've sustained desired changes and continued to develop."

How did the partnership between Finnish, Lithuanian, and other Baltic institutions develop for this conference?

"I hope this event will strengthen cooperation and support among countries in the field of family-centered neonatal care," Sari says. "The idea for the second day of the conference is to share good family-centered practices and learn from each other."

Is the conference exclusively for units who have undergone the Close Collaboration with Parents training, or would it be valuable for all professionals interested in family-centered care?

"The conference is open to all professionals interested in family-centered care," Sari emphasizes. "Our program is only one way to implement family-centered care; there are many others. Anyone can gain new perspectives and ideas from the conference without participating in our specific program. Of course, if someone wants to know more about Close Collaboration with Parents, this is a perfect event for them."

2024: It's a Wrap!

The Future of Neonatal Care: More Than Technology

Following the success of our previous conferences in Stockholm (2017), Vienna (2018), and Copenhagen (2019), our flagship event, "The 99nicu Meetup: The Future of Neonatal Care," made its return in the beautiful city of Lisbon, Portugal. After the long pause due to COVID, it was incredibly rewarding to once again facilitate face-to-face connections among our community members.

While cutting-edge technologies and AI-based innovations were certainly on display, we discovered something even more profound: the future of neonatal care isn't just about advancing technology—it's about strengthening our human connections. We were particularly touched by the blend of scientific excellence and genuine warmth exhibited by our attendees and speakers—brilliant researchers who are, above all, compassionate and engaging individuals.

Expanding Horizons: The APAN Webinar Series

November brought an exciting collaboration with the Adult Preemie Advocacy Network (APAN) as we launched "Adults Born Preterm: The Honesty Sessions." This five-part webinar series created a unique platform where experts, advocates, and individuals with lived experience came together to explore the lifelong impact of preterm birth. From advocacy and communication to lung health and personal insights, these sessions highlighted the connection between NICU care and long-term outcomes.

Digital Evolution: Finding Our True Home

2024 also marked a thoughtful evolution in how we connect with our community. We made the conscious decision to leave Twitter/X, choosing to focus our energy on platforms that better align with our core values of inclusivity, collaboration, and meaningful dialogue. You can now find us on our moderated forums at 99nicu.org, our Mastodon server (the NICUVERSE), LinkedIn, and BlueSky—spaces where authentic professional connections can truly flourish.

Looking Forward

As we reflect on this year, we're grateful to every member of our community who has contributed to making 2024 a year of growth, learning, and fostering connections. We would also like to thank our collaborators, partners and supporters- you made many things possible. Together, we're building a stronger future of neonatal care—one that combines innovation with the irreplaceable human touch.

We are approaching the Big Leap upgrading to our community software to a new version.

This is a major upgrade, but we hope there won't be too much issues while doing it. In addition to lots of tech stuff, the look and feel will also change, especially on your mobile  😀

In case the site drops offline 🫣 we will share updates on Mastodon, BlueSky, and LinkedIn.

We are yet to finalize the timeline for doing this. You will know it when you see it!