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Why Music Psychotherapy with post-NICU families?
Music Psychotherapy has positive impacts on both NICU babies and their caregivers, promoting emotional bonding (Jaschke, 2024) as well as having positive physiological and psychological outcomes for both mothers / caregivers and their babies. These include supporting:
Babies’ brain development; a strong, steady, regular heartbeat and heart rate; regular sucking rates; increased sleep durations; regulating body temperature; increased o2 saturation; reduced gastrointestinal problems; neurological development; recovery from medical trauma.
Parents / caregivers with recovery from Maternal Stress Syndrome (MSS); Post Natal Depression (PND); Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); birth trauma; neonatal stress and pain; medical trauma.
According to Isenberg-Grzeda ‘the intra-uterine sound environment, although beyond conscious recall, may leave a wordless and amorphous memory trace, which serves as a template for all future rhythmic response and provide us with a lifelong sound and rhythmic symbolic image of security, thereby providing for continuity between intra and extra uterine life’.
Music Psychotherapy supports babies by reducing the stresses caused by the transition between intra and extra uterine life, particularly when this transition has been sudden, traumatic and / or premature.
Medical evidence-based research findings
’Music Therapy Research in the NICU: An Updated Meta-Analysis’ Jayne Standley, Neonatal Network 2012, Vol. 31, Issue 5, pg 3-11
- Music listening for pacification
- Reinforcement of sucking
- Music pacification for multi-layered, multi-modal stimulation
‘The effect of musical stimulation and mother’s voice on the early development of musical abilities: A neuropsychological perspective’
- An infant‘s early contact with music affects its future development, including the development of musical aptitude.
- Contact with the mother’s voice, both prenatally and after birth, is also extremely important for creating an emotional bond between the infant and the mother.
’Mothers and Fathers Singing to Infants’ Trehub et al, pms.ncbi, accessed 23.11.25
- Infant musical development occurs primarily in the context of maternal bonding and maternal singing
- Mothers in all cultures of the world tend to speak more musically to their infants than to adults
- This phenomenon is called ‘motherese’ or infant-directed speech
‘The Singing Unit – a pilot study investigating the efficacy of a music therapy singing intervention in a local neonatal unit to support parent/infant bonding and reduce parental anxiety‘ Elizabeth Coombes & Iyad-Al Muzaffar, Journal of Neonatal Nursing, Vol. 27, Issue 1, pg 47-51
- significant increase in parental well-being
- reduction in parental anxiety
- improved parental bonding
Our services
We offer :
Group Music Psychotherapy sessions for families who have been discharged from the NICU.
Group Music Psychotherapy sessions for expectant parents who have been identified as in need of support with pre-birth bonding on our clinical pathway, due to multiples and / or expected premature birth.
Each block of therapy consists of 10, 1-hour Music Psychotherapy group sessions.
We are also able to provide one to one Music Psychotherapy for parents whom have been identified as high need due to mental health concerns.
How to refer
Referrals can be made by medical professionals and parents / caregivers.
We have a contact page on this website and upon receipt of your initial contact, we will send out a referral form to be completed by the referrer.
If the referral is successful, the family will be added to the next available Music Psychotherapy group.
Clinical pathway
Graphic to come