Music Therapy for Infants

Loewy, Dr. J. Music and Medicine ‘Music Therapy for infants’ (2008)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/video/music-and-medicine/music-therapy-for-infants/76/

Summary:

Dr. Joanne Loewy is a New York based Music Therapist who works for the Institute for Music and Neurological Function. In this study, Loewy and a nurse are working with an infant, who is having trouble bottle feeding, and Loewy is using music therapy as a means to calm the baby down to assist the feeding process.

To start off, Loewy describes how, while in the womb, the fetus hears the mothers heartbeat on average 26 million times before the baby is born. She then produces a ‘Gato Box’ in an attempt to recreate the sound of the mother’s heartbeat, a sound that the baby is very familiar with. It is assumed that the infant is then soothed by this sound, while the baby nurses on a bottle. It is very evident, based on the eye movement and facial response that the baby is in fact stimulated by this sound.

Loewy taps the ‘Gato box’ (which is normally beat with a mallet) with her fingers to recreate the sound of the mother’s heartbeat. She suggests that beating the Gato box with a mallet would be too jarring for the infant. The sound produced is soft and gentle, as the sound emanates from inside this enclosed hand held box. The drumming on the gato box is done in time to the baby’s heartbeat so that the baby can suck on the baby bottle to a rhythm. Loewy compares this entrainment to the rhythm a person falls into while running or exercising with an iPod...the rhythm of the exercise is in time with that of the music.

It is explained that at the beginning of the experiment, it is expected that the baby’s heartbeat will rise (which it does) and then settle as the experiment continues (which it also does.)

Reflection:

I found watching this mini documentary on PBS very interesting. Loewy seems to put the infant at ease instantly with a very soothing nature about her. She seems very much like the ‘typical’ music therapist-calm, collected, kind and even has a guitar in her hands! (which she never plays-at least not in this segment.) This process very clearly helps to give the infant a sense of comfort and calm and she seems to be instantly soothed. The process is the same as is suggested for families when a newborn animal is brought into the home-to place a ticking clock which will remind them of their mother, in order to offer comfort. It was fascinating to see the infant react so quickly-as soon as the baby hears the ‘heartbeat’ her eyes seem to light up, and then she settles. Very quickly, she is nursing, (in a sort of rhythm with the Gato box, and thus in rhythm with her own heartbeat, and responding to the stimulus. I found it fascinating to see such response come from something so simple-just hearing a sound that the infant was familiar with, and more importantly one which she is able to associate with her mother instantly earned the desired reaction.