Music therapy is a profession that uses clinical and evidence-based music interventions to address specific therapeutic goals to improve the health and well-being of a patient within a therapeutic relationship. Neonatal Intensive Care-Music therapy is defined by Standley and Gutierrez (2020) as “an evidence-based, specialized training in music therapy, neurodevelopmental, and family care intervention for premature infants.” NICU-MTs are equipped with counseling skills, experience working in a NICU interdisciplinary team, and providing assistance to parents who may become overwhelmed by the stress of the NICU. For premature infants, the NICU is a stressful environment that includes loud noises, bright lights, separation from their parents, and invasive treatments that are necessary to save the infant’s life. Music therapy is employed to assist in improving the health of infants, resulting in shorter hospital stays, increased resting energy preservation, and increased growth (Allen, 2013).
The purpose of studying music therapy on infants in the NICU is to find interventions that improve infant health, decrease infant and family anxiety, and get the infants home faster. The NICU is a stressful environment for preterm infants with bright lights, loud noises, and increased physical touch from nonmaternal figures on a regular basis. Preterm infants are “touched, positioned, examined, and manipulated more than 8 to 12 times over a 4-hour period to assess and evaluate their clinical status. Each of these stimuli can be viewed as a stressor by the immature system of a premature infant, which can lead to impaired oxygenation, blood flow, heart rate, and behavioral responses” (Allen, 2013). When introduced at an appropriate decibel level, music can counteract the negative effects of physical discomfort.
In this photo, the music therapist is using a music therapy technique called multimodal sensory stimulation.
Caine (1991) did a study that showed “that listening to continuous music for up to four hours a day… has a number of physiological benefits such as: reduced infant stress, increased weight gain, stabilized heart and respiratory rates, increased oxygen saturation, and reductions in apnea and bradycardia.” Kraft (2021) also found that music interventions improve premature infants’ vital signs, movement patterns, and positive neurodevelopment. Maternal singing is especially beneficial because it reduces the mother’s stress, increases her attachment to her infant, and trains her to combat overstimulation with her child. Maternal singing “is particularly responsible for sustaining infant’s attention, modulating arousal and enabling mother-infant protocol versatile self in at term infants” (Trehub, 2017). Live singing is important to continue in the home because it promotes “social development as evidenced by the infant giving positive responses to eye contact, watching or focusing attention on the caregiver, orienting the head and eyes to visual and auditory stimuli, mimicking care-giver facial expressions, and beginning to self-regulate” (as cited in Standley, 2019).
-Janelle Lockney, Music Therapy Intern
References:
Kraft, K. (2021). Maternal anxiety, infant stress, and the role of live performed music therapy during nicu stay in the netherlands. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 18(No. 13), p.7077.
Caine, J. (1991). The effects of music on the selected stress behaviors, weight, caloric and formula intake, and length of hospital stay of premature and low birth weight neonates in a newborn intensive care unit. The Journal of Music Therapy
Trehub, S. (2017). The Maternal Voice as a Special Signal for Infants. 10.1007/978-3-319-65077-7_3.
Standley, J. (2020). Benefits of a comprehensive evidenced-based NICU-MT program: Family-centered, neurodevelopmental music therapy for premature infants. Pediatric Nursing, Vol. 46(No. 1), p.40-46.
Allen, K. (2013). Music therapy in the nicu: Is there evidence to support integration for procedural support? Advances in Neonatal Care, Vol. 13(No. 5), p.349-352.