Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 11, 2026
Clinical Practice Protocol of Creative Music Therapy for Preterm Infants and Their Parents in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Published on: January 7, 2020
Physiological responses of preterm newborn infants submitted to classical music therapy
Camila Mendes da Silva1, Jessica Marcelle R Cação, Karin Cristina dos S Silva
1UCDB, Campo Grande, MS, Brasil.
Objective:
To evaluate the physiological effects of music therapy on hospitalized preterm newborns.
Methods:
A noncontrolled clinical trial including 12 newborn infants with gestational age <36 weeks, spontaneously breathing. The preterm infants were submitted to 15-minute sessions of classical music therapy twice a day (morning and afternoon) for three consecutive days. The variables: heart and respiratory rates, oxygen saturation, diastolic and systolic arterial pressures, and body temperature were analyzed before and immediately after each music therapy session.
Results:
There was a decrease in the heart rate after the second session of music therapy (paired t-test; p=0.002), and an increase at the end of the third session (paired t-test; p=0.005). Respiratory rate decreased during the fourth and fifth sessions (paired t-test; p=0.01 and 0.03, respectively). Regarding oxygen saturation, there was an increase after the fifth session (p=0.008). Comparison of physiological parameters among sessions, for the six studied sessions, showed only that the gain in oxygen saturation during the fifth session was significantly higher than during the sixth one (Tukey's test after variance analysis; p=0.04).
Conclusions:
Music therapy may modify short-term physiological responses of hospitalized preterm newborn infants.
