As manager of journal publishing at the American Academy of Pediatrics, I help the editorial board bring innovative ideas like our Video Library to fruition along with ensuring new studies publish every month to further the education of neonatologists. As a relatively new dad, I’ve also experienced the joys of having a neonate of my own. My daughter was born in 2021, so yes, I probably should have written a blog about her last year, but I was very, very tired. With so many fun, new, and interesting things that happened in NeoReviews in 2022, I wanted to write a dual ”Perspective” blog of my own with insights into 2022 NeoReviews and a few fatherhood tales from the Sinason household.
January started off strong with an award-winning Perspective Anti-Racism in the Field of Neonatology, and ended with an illuminating Perspective called Dis(appearance) of an Arachnoid Cyst: A Follow-up Imaging Perspective. The year also started with my household being vehemently “no screens,” and ended with Grandma buying out the entire Cocomelon catalogue for the holidays because, after all, it’s her favorite show. I’m partial to Daniel Tiger; Masha and the Bear is okay too.
In the spring, we revamped our Strip of The Month section into the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Case Series, focusing more broadly on issues pertaining to obstetrics as well as newborn medicine. Highlights from this year’s batch of articles include Management of a Common Fetal Arrhythmia, Maternal Mastectomy in the Third Trimester, and Double Trouble: A Singleton in Each Horn of a Bicornuate Uterus. Spring was the time my daughter firmly moved off formula and on to real food. I took a taste of everything she ate, even the green ones. There was a tube labeled “Turkey Dinner” that was shockingly good.
Complex Fetal Care took on the summer with 3 great articles: Prenatal Diagnosis and Management of Thrombocytopenia-Absent Radius Syndrome, Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1, and Fetal Disseminated Malignant Rhabdoid Tumor. This feature launched in late 2021 and is steadily becoming a staple in the journal. Summer was also the stage my 11-month-old daughter started using her clothing as a way to communicate. I watched her attempt this new action-packed activity on the daycare camera when she removed her shoe and hit the unlucky daycare lady with it. I should probably send an apology note at some point. I guess it’d be easier to wait until she graduates daycare and make one comprehensive list of her misdeeds.
In the fall, NeoReviews launched a brand-new Equity Diversity and Inclusion Case Series, starting with Equity in Policies Regarding Urine Drug Testing in Infants, and will continue in March of 2023 with an article titled Gender in Infant Care. This series focuses on EDI cases in the NICU and is spearheaded by a group of early career physicians. Fall was also our first real Halloween (she was still a very tiny baby the first year). She went to daycare dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Oddly, she wasn’t the only Ruth Bader Ginsburg in daycare this year.
We ramped up our Graduates of the NICU section with Follow-up for a Preterm Infant with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome and Tracheostomy in a Preterm Infant with Severe Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia. Also, my own NICU graduate, then 7-months-old, projectile vomited on me when I was wearing a brand-new suit five minutes before we had to leave for a wedding. NeoReviews editors told me “Inconvenient Vomiting in a 7-Month-Old” wasn’t worthy of publication as a case report.
NeoReviews continued to publish NeoBriefs this year, including one in December on Congenital Disorders of Red Blood Cells. NeoBriefs are a series of narrated study slides that accompany various articles throughout the year. The slides were also included in June’s Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation with an Intact Umbilical Cord, and July’s Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia. Fun last fact from my fatherhood tales—I haven’t been thrown up on in the new year yet. But the year is young, and we have lots of cookies and treats and visits to Grandma to go.
Thank you to all the readers and to the editors of NeoReviews for a great 2022. We look forward to publishing new articles in 2023, and I look forward to being thrown up on less. I’m realistic so I know it won’t be none, but less would be good.
