Therapeutic value of lullabies

(Wikipedia)

Studies conducted by Dr. Jeffery Perlman, chief of newborn medicine at New York–Presbyterian Hospital's Komansky Center for Children's Health, find that gentle music therapy not only slows down the heart rate of prematurely delivered infants but also helps them feed and sleep better. This helps them gain weight and speeds their recovery. A study published in May 2013 in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics under the aegis of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City found that the type of music matters. Therapeutically designed "live" music — and lullabies sung in person — can influence cardiac and respiratory function. Another study published in February 2011 in Arts in Psychotherapy by Jayne M. Standley of the National Institute for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy at Florida State University suggests that babies who receive this kind of therapy leave the hospital sooner.[14]

Additional research by Jayne M. Standley has demonstrated that the physiological responses of prematurely delivered infants undergoing intensive care can be regulated by listening to gentle lullabies through headphones. In addition to slowing heart and respiration rates, lullabies have been associated with increased oxygen saturation levels and the possible prevention of potentially life-threatening episodes of apnea and bradycardia.[15] Gentle music can also provide stimulation for premature infants to behave in ways that boost their development and keep them alive. Lullabies can serve as a low-risk source of stimulation and reinforcement for increasing nipple sucking (feeding) rates, providing infants with the nutrition they require for growth and development. Lullabies are thus associated with encouraging the rapid development of the neurological system and with a shorter length of hospitalization.[16]

More recent research has shown that lullabies sung live can have beneficial effects on physiological functioning and development in premature infants. The live element of a slow, repetitive entrained rhythm can regulate sucking behavior. Infants have a natural tendency to entrain to the sounds that surround them. Beat perception begins during fetal development in the womb and infants are born with an innate musical preference. The element of live breathing sounds can regulate infant heart rate, quiet-alert states, and sleep. Live lullabies can also enhance parent-child bonding, thus decreasing parental stress associated with the intensive care. In short, live lullabies sung by music therapists induce relaxation, rest, comfort, and optimal growth and development.[17]

Many lullabies, regardless of the meaning of their words, possess a peaceful hypnotic quality. Others are mournful or dark, like a lament. The Gaelic lullaby "Ba, Ba, Mo Leanabh Beag" was written in 1848 during the potato famine, which caused much hardship in the Scottish Highlands. The song mentions, soft potatoes, the mother's situation, and her fears for her child.[18] In the 1920s, poet Federico García Lorca studied Spanish lullabies and noted the "poetic character" and "depth of sadness" of many of them. Lorca's theory was that a large part of the function of the lullaby is to help a mother vocalize her worries and concerns. In short, they also serve as therapy for the mother.[8]

Combined with lament, lullaby can have "restorative resounding" properties for hospice inpatients and their families. Lullabies typically soothe people through the awake/sleep transition, and similarly can soothe people through the life/death transition. Music therapists have called these tunes "lullaments", that which sustain the spirit, support psychological structure, and enable resilience during times of vulnerability to the effects of adversity. Lullaments are music-contextualized expressions of attachment and detachment, sadness/tears and happiness/laughter, privilege and loss, nurturance and grief, deterioration, stasis and moving forward.[19]

Many Christmas carols are designed as lullabies for the infant Jesus, the most famous of them being "Silent Night". "Hush Little Baby" has been observed cross-culturally and is known to have a natural capacity for soothing and energizing infants, as well as nurturing caregiving bonds.[20]: 216