Listening to music. Pregnancy can be emotionally stressful due to the hormonal and physical changes women experience during this special time. The mental changes that women experience can lead to anxiety, depression, fear, and frustration that can have adverse effects on their babies. Poor eating and sleeping patterns can limit overall functioning, which can be associated with an increased risk of prematurity and low birth weight, along with delayed childhood development and negative temperaments in children. Drug therapy in pregnancy to manage stress always carries risks of side effects for both mother and child, making non-pharmacological intervention a safer alternative.
Music has always been used as a form of therapy to reduce stress, pain, and anxiety by promoting relaxation through creating a healing environment for physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Already in the year 555 a. C., a well-known Greek philosopher and mathematician named Pythagoras felt that music was an important therapy in medicine to maintain good health and often recommended music to maintain harmony and healing in the body.
Stress can affect the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal cortex by arousing the sympathetic nervous system. Music can trigger a pituitary response with the release of hormones and endorphins, which are natural opiates that can relieve pain. It stimulates the thalamus and limbic areas of the brain, stimulating good feelings and emotions. Music has been shown to affect blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing along with emotional balance in adults.
Pregnancy, childbirth and newborn care are likely areas to complement and extend conventional medical care through the use of alternative therapies such as music to reduce stress, anxiety and pain. Music has been found to stimulate the pleasure response and distract from labor pains. Sidorenko published a paper in 2000 showing that music improved relaxation in pregnant women by lowering heart rate, blood pressure, breathing patterns, and pulse. In addition, there was a reduction in the need for painkillers and better sleep patterns, and a reduction in the number of preterm births. Women who listened to music during labor and delivery reduced anxiety and pain during labor, both vaginal and cesarean deliveries. It also made it possible to decrease work time and shorten hospital stay.
It has been found that the choice of music is important to your success. The most beneficial responses occur when the music is familiar, desirable, and meaningful. Browning in Canada conducted a study that showed that music can be an important adjunct to pain and stress management during labor when the mother chooses the music, with an emphasis on pieces that have significant meaning for both mother and child. for your partner. Daily listening should begin in the third trimester for familiarization prior to labor in hopes of promoting a positive conditioned response during labor.
Music has also been found to be therapeutic for babies. Studies of preterm and low birth weight infants have shown shorter hospital stays, less weight loss, and fewer apneic episodes when recorded music is played in the intensive care unit. (Casino 1992, Stardley and Moore 1995) A study by Keith in 2009 showed a significant reduction in the frequency and duration of inconsolable crying in infants as a result of musical intervention, as well as an improvement in heart rate, breathing, oxygen saturation and mean arterial pressure. Other studies showed an increase in head circumference and a decrease in heart rate in premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit between 28 and 32 weeks when they listened to music. (Cassidy 2009)
A newborn has a predilection for the mother’s voice and also for the musical pieces to which it has been exposed in the womb, indicating that the fetus may have the ability to learn in the womb. (Gerhardt, 2000) It is believed that the fetus can hear at the end of gestation. Studies from Canada have shown increases in heart rate in response to Brahms’ lullaby from 28 weeks.
Additional guidelines published in the Journal of Perinatology in 2000 by the High-Risk Children’s Center Developmental and Physical Environment Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Sound Study Group and Expert Review Panel recommend that:
1. Pregnant women avoid prolonged exposure to low-frequency sound levels (
