Music 'can relax pregnant mums'

06 Oct 2008

Music can help pregnant women to feel less stressed, according to experts in Taiwan.

Scientists found that listening to certain types of music could help to relax mums to be, including lullabies and classical songs.

Hearing the sounds of nature was also a way to reduce the strain of an upcoming birth, the researchers claimed.

The scientists divided a number of pregnant women into two groups, with 116 given music CDs and 120 receiving normal pregnancy care.

Music on the CDs was set to reflect the tempo of the human heart beat and included works from Beethoven and Debussy, Chinese nursery rhymes, lullabies and nature sounds.

"The music group showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety and depression after just two weeks, using three established measurement scales," says Professor Chung-Hey Chen, who is now based at the National Cheng Kung University.

"In comparison, the control group showed a much smaller reduction in stress, while their anxiety and depression scores showed little or no improvement."

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