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Updated: Mar 15, 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
Do Hospitalized Premature Infants Benefit from Music Interventions? A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled
Marianne J E van der Heijden1, Sadaf Oliai Araghi2, Johannes Jeekel2
1Department of Paediatrics, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Insights
Music interventions show potential benefits for premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), improving sleep, heart rate, and feeding outcomes. However, varied study quality and methods limit definitive conclusions on music therapy effectiveness.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal care
- Developmental pediatrics
- Music therapy
Background:
- Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) globally are increasingly adopting music interventions.
- The last systematic review on this topic was published in 2009, necessitating an updated review.
- Fifteen new randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have emerged since the last review.
Purpose of the Study:
- To conduct an updated systematic review of RCTs evaluating music interventions for premature infants.
- To assess the potential benefits of music interventions on the well-being of premature infants.
Main Methods:
- Searched 13 electronic databases and 12 journals up to August 2016.
- Included RCTs published in English with at least 10 participants per group, focusing on premature infants in the NICU.
- Interventions included recorded music or live music therapy; meta-analysis was not feasible due to data heterogeneity.
Main Results:
- Twenty studies involving 1128 infants were included, examining physiological, growth, feeding, and behavioral outcomes.
- Live music interventions showed improvements in sleep and heart rate in some studies.
- Recorded music demonstrated benefits for heart rate and feeding/sucking outcomes in certain studies.
Conclusions:
- Music interventions demonstrate promising results for specific outcomes in premature infants.
- Variations in study quality, participant age, outcome measures, and intervention timing hinder strong conclusions.
- Further high-quality research is needed to establish definitive effects of music interventions in the NICU.
Objective:
Neonatal intensive care units (NICU) around the world increasingly use music interventions. The most recent systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCT) dates from 2009. Since then, 15 new RCTs have been published. We provide an updated systematic review on the possible benefits of music interventions on premature infants' well-being.
Methods:
We searched 13 electronic databases and 12 journals from their first available date until August 2016. Included were all RCTs published in English with at least 10 participants per group, including infants born prematurely and admitted to the NICU. Interventions were either recorded music interventions or live music therapy interventions. All control conditions were accepted as long as the effects of the music intervention could be analysed separately. A meta-analysis was not possible due to incompleteness and heterogeneity of the data.
Results:
After removal of duplicates the searches retrieved 4893 citations, 20 of which fulfilled the inclusion/exclusion criteria. The 20 included studies encompassed 1128 participants receiving recorded or live music interventions in the NICU between 24 and 40 weeks gestational age. Twenty-six different outcomes were reported which we classified into three categories: physiological parameters; growth and feeding; behavioural state, relaxation outcomes and pain. Live music interventions were shown to improve sleep in three out of the four studies and heart rate in two out of the four studies. Recorded music improved heart rate in two out of six studies. Better feeding and sucking outcomes were reported in one study using live music and in two studies using recorded music.
Conclusions:
Although music interventions show promising results in some studies, the variation in quality of the studies, age groups, outcome measures and timing of the interventions across the studies makes it difficult to draw strong conclusions on the effects of music in premature infants.
