United States: A new study has found that playing music such as a Mozart lullaby to babies may help reduce their suffering during painful procedures.
Dr. Saminathan Anbalagan, a neonatal and perinatal medicine fellow at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, US, who led the new research, commented that “studies have demonstrated that early pain experiences may alter pain responses later in life and lead to other long-term adverse outcomes. Hence, establishing an easy and reliable method to reduce pain in newborns is crucial.”
Dr. Anbalagan and his colleagues measured the pain levels of 100 newborn infants undergoing a heel-prick blood test for serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis and inherited metabolic disorders. Each of them was given a small dose of sugar solution two minutes before the procedure, while 54 of the infants were also played an instrumental Mozart lullaby for 20 minutes before, during, and five minutes after it. The other babies did not listen to any music.
A researcher wearing noise-cancelling headphones measured the pain levels of babies using a standard scoring system that assessed facial expressions, crying, breathing patterns, limb movements, and alertness, with a maximum possible score of seven.
The study, published in Pediatric Research, found that while pain scores were zero for both groups before the heel prick, the average pain score of infants who listened to the lullaby was significantly lower during and immediately after the procedure compared with those who did not listen to music.
The pain scores of infants who listened to the lullaby were four during the procedure, dropping to zero a minute later. Average pain scores for infants who didn’t hear the lullaby were seven at the time of the heel prick, dropping to five and a half after one minute and to two at two minutes. According to Dr. Anbalagan, music intervention is “an easy, reproducible, and inexpensive tool for pain relief from minor procedures in healthy, term newborns.”
“We suggest that future studies should also strongly consider exploring the effects of similar interventions, such as recorded parental voices instead of Mozart music,” the researcher further added.