Premature Babies

Early separation from the in-utero sound of a mother’s heartbeat followed by the noisy surroundings of an intensive care unit can make a premature baby’s acoustic environments traumatic and difficult to assimilate.

We are experienced at working in Neo-natal Intensive Care Units (NICU) to support both premature babies and their parents at this difficult time. We can also continue this support once the baby goes home, to ease the transition.

Music Therapists can offer gentle live music interventions to promote:

• Attachment, engagement, comfort and soothing through lullabies, or a song selected and then ideally sung by the parent or carer
• Opportunities to promote optimal physical and neurological growth
• The replication of womb or heartbeat sounds to support acoustic adjustment

Music has also been used to successfully increase feeding patterns by matching the baby’s sucking rate to simple rhythms on a gato drum. Sleep, breathing and decreased stress levels in parents have also been documented as additional outcomes for NICU babies supported by Music Therapy.