GabyIt’s no secret that Mozart’s music relaxes millions worldwide. New research shows the effect extends to infants: babies who listened to Mozart’s “Lullaby” experienced less pain during a heel prick.
How Was the Study Conducted?
Heel pricks are painful for infants. Parents are usually advised to hold and feed babies to ease their discomfort. Researchers now suggest Mozart’s music may be a simple, inexpensive way to reduce pain during minor procedures in newborns.
A team of researchers from New York measured pain levels in 100 infants undergoing blood tests. On average the babies were two days old; all were full-term newborns.
As part of standard care, all infants received 0.5 ml of a sugar solution two minutes before the heel prick. A researcher wearing noise-cancelling headphones assessed each baby’s pain levels before, during, and after the procedure. Pain was measured using facial expressions, crying intensity, breathing patterns, limb movements, and alertness.
In the study, 54 of the 100 infants listened to Mozart’s “Lullaby” for 20 minutes before and during the heel prick and for five minutes afterward; the others did not. The procedure always took place in a quiet, dimly lit room at ambient temperature. During the procedure the infants were not physically comforted.
Mozart’s Music Relieves Infant Pain
Before the prick, both groups showed similar pain levels, with zero pain scores out of seven. During and immediately after the heel prick, however, the average pain score for infants who listened to Mozart was significantly lower than for those who did not.
Pain scores for babies who listened to the “Lullaby” were 4 during the test, and 0 one and two minutes after the procedure. In the group without music, pain scores were 7, 5.5, and 2, respectively. The study found no difference in average pain scores between the groups three minutes after the procedure.
The findings suggest that certain types of soothing music can have a powerful calming effect on infants’ brains. One possible explanation is that musical sounds distract babies from pain.
Previous research in adults showed that live, pleasant music relieves pain more than gloomy or sad music, which suggests distraction alone cannot fully explain the effect.
The Secret of Music’s Pain-Relief Effect Remains Unknown
There may be something in tempo, harmony, or melody that relaxes the human brain, even when a listener has had little prior exposure to music. This study did not compare different types of music or their pain-relieving effects; that could be explored in future work.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the researchers said future studies might test whether recordings of parents’ voices can also reduce pain in newborns during minor procedures and examine how caregivers’ physical comfort, alongside music, affects pain levels.
The authors conclude that recorded music, used together with sucrose, is effective for reducing pain and recommend its use in healthy, full-term newborns. They describe musical intervention as an easy, reproducible, and inexpensive tool to relieve pain during minor procedures in these infants.
