Effect of Music Therapy Interventions on Heart Rate Variability in Premature Infants

Area of Science:

• Neonatal Intensive Care Medicine
• Developmental Psychology
• Bioengineering

Background:

• Premature infants face significant risks of complications post-birth.
• Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are crucial for managing these risks.
• Communicative interventions, including music therapy, show potential in mitigating infant stress and supporting autonomic nervous system development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of communicative interventions (singing, humming, talking, rhythmic reading) on premature infants.
• To assess the effects of these interventions on heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of autonomic regulation.
• To analyze specific HRV features to understand physiological responses to communicative stimuli.

Main Methods:

• Included 27 communicative interventions from 18 premature infants in a NICU setting.
• Extracted NN-intervals from ECG data to calculate HRV features (HR, SDNN, RMSSD, pNN50, pDec, SDDec).
• Compared median feature values before and during communicative interventions using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Main Results:

• Observed an increase in SDNN, RMSSD, and pNN50 preceding interventions, followed by a decrease at intervention onset.
• Noted reduced variability in HRV features during interventions compared to pre-intervention periods.
• This reduction in variability suggests improved autonomic regulation, though not statistically significant due to intervention diversity.

Conclusions:

• Communicative interventions may positively influence autonomic regulation in premature infants.
• HRV analysis provides insights into the physiological effects of music therapy and similar interventions.
• Further research with standardized interventions is needed to confirm statistical significance and optimize therapeutic approaches.