I was interested to see, in the Journal of the American Medical Association for January 26, a report from the Ninth World Congress of Music Therapy, held in Florida recently, claiming that music played or sung to premature infants during their residence in the neonatal intensive unit improves their future development. Although recorded lullabies played to the infants were found to be effective in promoting their welfare, crooning by the mother, in concert with massaging, was better still, achieving early oxygen saturation levels, weight gain and a briefer stay in the hospital.
A controlled study was carried out in a group of 40 infants, 20 of whom listened to sung lullabies once or twice a week until discharge. In the music with massage group, the period of stay in hospital was shortened by an average of 11 days for girls and 1.5 days for boys. Infants of either sex gained weight under treatment, but the degree was not significant. To explain the sex difference in hospital stay, it is suggested that male babies may not be so accessible to auditory stimulation as females since their ear development comes somewhat later in life.
Music also stimulates non-nutritive sucking movements in infants, probably by helping to induce rhythmic mouth contractions. Equipment designed to promote this effect, which might expedite oral feeding ability in premature infants, is being produced. Sounds introduced into a neonatal intensive care unit, it is stressed, should be soothing and at constant volume, to avoid the alerting mechanism triggered by any abrupt change in auditory stimulation. Their volume should be in the range 60-70dB. One advantage of piping such music into the care unit is that it also reduces the level of local noise caused by infants crying.