MUSIC THERAPY INTERVENTION FOR THE MOTHER-PRETERM INFANT DYAD: A PROPOSAL OF INTERVENTION IN THE NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT ¹

ABSTRACT

This report of experience describes the Music therapy intervention for the mother-preterm infant dyad - MUSIP, that aims at sensitizing the mother to sing to her preterm infant, during the hospitalization in the Neonatal Intensive Unit Care. The MUSIP is organized in eight sessions, alternating individual sessions with the mother and sessions with the mother-infant dyad. During the implementation of the MUSIP, the music therapist carried out the intervention in a NICU of a public hospital with nine mothers and their preterm infants. Several challenges were found regarding the availability of the families and the demands of the hospital. Therefore, it was necessary to adapt the MUSIP, by making the number of sessions more flexible, the kind of activities that were proposed, as well as the alternation between the sessions with the mother and with mother-infant dyad. Evidences suggest that MUSIP contributed to the mother’s and the infant’s ‘empowerment’ and to their ‘communicative musicality’, enhancing the mother-preterm infant interaction. The MUSIP is a low-cost intervention with a big potential of long-term effects, since, besides supporting the dyad in the NICU, it guides the mother to sing autonomously for her infant during the hospitalization and after discharge. Future studies are needed to expand the MUSIP and to investigate its short and long-term effects for the mother, the preterm infant and mother-infant interaction.

Keywords:
Prematurity; neonatal intensive unit care; music therapy