The effect of live-performed music therapy with physical contact in preterm infants on parental perceived stress and salivary cortisol levels.

Parents of preterm infants face a stressful life event which might have long term impact on the parent-child relation as well as on the infant's cognitive and socio-emotional development. Both music therapy (MT) and physical contact (PC) are stress-reducing interventions for parents and preterm infants on the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Meanwhile, especially close PC is considered as standard care (SC) in most NICUs. However, the effect of live performed MT with PC on parental perceived stress and cortisol levels has barely been investigated. We hypothesized that MT with PC leads to reduced stress levels and lower salivary cortisol concentrations compared to SC in parents of preterm infants during the first 4 weeks after birth. Randomized-controlled trial enrolling the parents of 99 preterm infants (MT Forty-two mothers and eight fathers of the intervention group (MT with PC) as well as Live-performed MT with PC in preterm infants might be an effective, non-invasive intervention to reduce parental stress and cortisol levels. Future studies should investigate the long-term effects of this intervention on the parent-infant relation as well as on the infants' cognitive and socio-emotional development. https://drks.de/search/en/trial/DRKS00025755 identifier [DRKS00025755].

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2024 Dewan, Ader, Kleinbeck, Dathe, Schedlowski, Engler, Felderhoff-Mueser, Bruns and Kobus.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.