Music: A pacifier that works as a painkiller, too

Came across this story in the Globe and Mail from Canada. It's quite old but an interesting report on the benefits of music for premature babies.




Music: A pacifier that works as a painkiller too

Zosia Bielski

From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, May. 28, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Friday, May. 29, 2009 3:42AM EDT

Brahms's Lullaby might be good for much more than a heavy-eyed baby.

Music played to premature infants may help lessen their pain and ease the transition to bottle feeding, according to a new review study by Canadian researchers.

The findings, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, suggest that the trend of bathing babies in music is paying off.

Increasingly, neonatal units around the world are playing lullabies and sounds that mimic those that fetuses hear in the womb, hoping the music will improve the babies' behavioural and physiological outcomes, and alleviate pain during circumcision and other common procedures.

The benefits are said to include calmer infants (and parents), a stable condition in the child's functions, higher oxygen saturation, faster weight gain and shorter hospital stays. Popular preemie music includes recorded versions of Brahms's Lullaby and Hush-a-bye Baby.

Some of the studies combined lullabies with what the fetus would hear in utero, sounds such as heartbeats and blood flow, said Manoj Kumar, an assistant clinical professor at the neonatal division in the department of pediatrics at the University of Alberta. More...

www.babies-go.co.uk