Music can help in the recovery of premature babies

New research by Beth Israel Medical Center of New York has revealed that singing helps in the recovery of premature babies. The assessment was conducted at 11 hospitals where music therapists helped parents turn their favorite songs into lullabies.

Among some cases, one of the respondents, the mother of a premature Andrea Zalkin, sang one of her favorite Beatles songs (“Eight Days a Week”) for her fragile little baby who was born 13 weeks before the ideal date. As she sang, monitors showed a slowing of the child's heartbeat and increasing oxygen saturation.

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The researchers concluded that (live) music, played or sung, helped in addition to slowing babies' heartbeats, calming their breathing, improving their important feeding habits, improving sleep and promoting alertness. silent.

Doctors and researchers say that by reducing stress and stabilizing vital signs, music can allow babies to concentrate more energy for normal development.

Proven Effects

According to an article in The New York Times, premature births have increased since 1990 to about 500, 000 a year, with one in nine children born in the United States. With this index, the recovery tools increasingly searched by experts also increased, one of them being the use of music.

Some hospitals believe music is as effective and safe for children as it is sedative before some procedures such as heart ultrasound and brain monitoring. In addition, some neonatologists say that babies receiving music therapy leave hospitals early, which may help their development and family connection.

Dr. Thomas Truman, the director of neonatal and pediatric intensive care at Florida's Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, who was not involved in the study, said that children who had music played for them went home early: "At least two days old of difference compared to babies not receiving music therapy, "he said.

According to the doctor, music helps to decrease the child's response to stress, as well as increase the oxygen rate and utilization of calories for development and growth.

Researchers believe the reason may be because music is organized by overstimulating noise from neonatal units. "Noisy machines, medical rounds, and alarms on ventilators and oxygen pumps. All of these can be detrimental, but sound that is melodic and meaningful is important for the development of the baby's brain, " said Helen Shoemark, music researcher at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

The two-year study scientifically evaluated the impact of musical art on the health of babies, separating factors such as rhythm, melody and timbre to see effects on heart rate, breathing, sucking, waking, and sleep.

For the tune, parents were asked to talk about their favorite song that, if it wasn't lullaby, the researchers changed the rhythm to that form. When parents didn't have a song, the experts chose it as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" ("Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star").