Did you use music with your pregnancy?

Calling all women who used music during pregnancy and/or with childbirth! Next week I'll be giving a presentation in New York City on the importance of music during pregnancy and with preemies and newborns. I've done so much research on the topic that I decided to put together an ebook that I could offer to all women considering pregnancy or currently pregnancy. It turns out that music really does make a dramatic difference in the health of baby and mother and is so easy to implement.

Of course you know that my number one suggestion is always having the mother sing lullabies in her own natural voice. Despite the protests of some mothers that their voices are not "good enough," all of the research and anecdotal reports say that mother's voice is the one that all babies love best. If you think about it, that's the voice they've heard throughout their growth and devleopment and it's the one they most want to hear once they're born. BUT, any live voice is best. CDs and videos are good for mother to learn lullabies and songs to sing but the ideal is for mother to sing.

If you live in the NYC area and would like to have a consultation or a short talk to your group, please contact me through my website, http://www.healingmusicenterprises.com/. I'll be there April 2-5. Also, please send me any of your own personal stories about your use of music with pregnancy or childbirth! Hope to see YOU soon!

Can Babies Remember Music Heard in the Womb?

With all the talk today about playing music for your baby during pregnancy, a logical follow-up question that I hear all the time is: can the baby remember the music heard in the womb? The good news is "yes!". Researchers in London have put tiny cameras in the womb and measured the amount of time that the baby turns her head toward the music. With each subsequent playing of the same song, the baby "pays attention" a little longer and after birth, the baby responds by quieting down when fussy and also showing signs of recognition. For more information, go to http://www.le.ac.uk/psychology/aml11/aml11.html. For a beautiful album of familiar lullabies, go to http://www.healingmusicenterprises.com/products/lullabies/lullabies.html

Tiniest Preemie Goes Home

Today the news media were showing pictures of the happy family of the smallest preemie ever to survive. This little girl weighed less than a pound and was about 14 inches long I believe. The picture here shows her tiny feet between the doctors fingers! Let's hope she had lots of lullabies sung to her. I'd sure be interested to know.

Do you have a Valentine Baby?

Did you have a baby on Valentine's? Thousands of people did all over the world and hopefully they're singing and cooing and crooning to these special babies. Why should you sing to your newborn? Singing bonds mother and baby with sonic love vibrations that last a lifetime. Music therapy research is full of studies that you can Google and read for hours. Whether your baby was born on Valentines or years ago or isn't quite born yet, learn some lullabies or songs of any kind that you can sing to our child!

Music with circumcision

As the mother of three girls, I never had to make a decision about circumcision, but I remember discussing it at length with my husband. Our pediatrician had told us that the most important thing is for sons to "match" their fathers. I was also being told that most baby boys did not need the procedure unless they had an abnormally long foreskin. We really agonized about it until we found that the baby was a girl!

Several years ago, when I was still working in a large hospital here, I proposed a study on the use of music and lullabies for the procedure. To my amazement, many nurses were against it. Apparently I wasn't the first person to think of this idea:

SINGING TAKES STING OUT OF PAIN FOR BABIES
INDIANAPOLIS - Lullabies can do more than put babies to sleep, say researchers at the IU School of Nursing at IUPUI; they actually can help relieve pain.
Nursing professors Juanita Keck, Betsy Joyce and Janis Gerkensmeyer have completed a small study of 40 babies showing that newborns that listened to music during circumcision and blood sampling had significantly less pain by the end of the procedure. The neonates also maintained a steady heart rate throughout the circumcision procedure, and the degree to which their blood was able to carry oxygen also was significantly better for those babies who listened to music.
The researchers chose lullabies timed to a heartbeat - music that is tolerable to medical practitioners and pleasant to babies - to play throughout the procedure.
Keck says that playing music during surgical procedures is a non-invasive and cost-effective tool that is easy to implement. The challenge, she feels, is convincing health-care providers that the music really is effective.
"If we can describe physically how it works, then this intervention could become much more widely used," said Keck.
To achieve that goal, the three nursing researchers are seeking funding to expand their study to a larger scale.

You are singing to your tummy,aren't you??

The world will always have pregnant women, thank goodness!!! And I believe that instinctively, women feel the urge to softly sing or hum when they're pregnant as they move through their days, weeks and months of having a little angel growing inside. The instinct has now been scientifically documented to be a good thing. Let me explain: The growing infant's ear becomes functional as early as the beginning of the second trimester! When baby hears Mama singing or humming, she automatically associates this with comfort, nurturing, safety, and love. If you're singing or humming on a daily basis for most of the pregnancy then these same tunes and songs are going to be an immediate "calmer" for your baby. Once born, if you sing to baby softly while nursing her it will be yet another calming and loving association. Have you tried this? If so, please share your experiences with us!

A New Year for Preemies

Do you have a newborn preemie? Are you scared? They're so tiny, so fragile, so helpless, but there are lots of easy and very helpful things that you can do! It's a new year and a new era for preemies. Research in music therapy, music medicine and music healing continues to demonstrate that what baby hears in utero has a crucial effect on later bonding with mother and other family members. It is so important to keep a health sonic environment for baby and not let her be bombarded with loud rock music, fighting, screaming, yelling or other unpleasant, chaotic sounds. Instead, singing to your unborn child can create a permanent bond of love, safety and security. Research has shown that preemies who had been sung to in utero and who continued to be sung to, gained weight faster and left the hospital faster.

Even if your preemie was not sung to in utero, it's not too late to start now. Yor voice is most familiar and will be comforting and encouraging. Give it a try. Let me know if I can help!