#453 - [Journal Club] - 📌 What Happened to NEC When Centers Stopped Using Probiotics?

When the FDA warning landed in late 2023, probiotic use in high-use NICUs collapsed from 86% to under 7% almost overnight. What happened to NEC? This week Daphna brings Tolia and Patel's new Journal of Perinatology analysis of the Pediatrix Clinical Data Warehouse, a natural experiment across 347 NICUs and more than 10,000 extremely preterm infants. Centers that stopped saw NEC climb from 2.7% to 4.4%. Centers that never used probiotics saw nothing change. Ben and Daphna work through the difference-in-differences model, the demographic imbalances, and the uncomfortable question underneath it all. When does data stop and advocacy begin?----Probiotics and necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants after the food and drug administration warning actions. Tolia VN, Bennett MM, Handler D, Canvasser J, Greenberg RG, Ursprung R, Ahmad KA, Patel RM.J Perinatol. 2026 Jun 2. doi: 10.1038/s41372-026-02712-y. Online ahead of print.PMID: 42225922 Support the showAs always, feel free to send us questions, comments, or suggestions to our email: [email protected]. You can also contact the show through Instagram or Twitter, @nicupodcast. Or contact Ben and Daphna directly via their Twitter profiles: @drnicu and @doctordaphnamd. The papers discussed in today's episode are listed and timestamped on the webpage linked below.Enjoy!