Music therapy for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome

Authors

  • Jacinta Louise Calabro TLC Music Music Therapy Online

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47513/mmd.v9i1.519

Abstract

Abstract

Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) occurs after significant in-utero exposure to opiates, such as methadone and heroin.  Infants with NAS are often hospitalized for 4-6 weeks in a special care nursery, which is both expensive and detrimental to the parent-child bonding process. 

This study trialled the effectiveness of recorded sedative music (RSM) and multimodal stimulation (MMS) for infants with NAS.  The infants were recruited by the hospitals alcohol drug and pregnancy team (ADAPT) and randomly allocated into one of 4 groups. The study hypothesised that infants in the treatment groups would experience a shorter hospital stay, higher weight gain, more parent visits, more days until medication began and less medication than control infants.  The study also hypothesised that the treatment infants would have lower NAS scores compared to control infants. 

Due to a small and skewed sample the hypotheses were not supported.  There were no significant results for any measure, although slight trends were noted for reduced crying and regular respiration for infants in the treatment groups.  These findings support previous research into alternative treatment interventions for infants with NAS.  It is suggested that RSM and MMS interventions can still be potentially useful interventions with this population.

 Keywords

Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), music therapy, multimodal stimulation, recorded sedative music.

Author Biography

Jacinta Louise Calabro, TLC Music Music Therapy Online

Jacinta Calabro is in private practice at TLC Music working with infants, young children and their families.  She has worked clinically in paediatric and neonatal settings and held an academic position with the music therapy department at the University of Melbourne.  Jacinta is also the founder of Music Therapy Online - a website devoted to tutorials and short courses for music therapists worldwide.

References

References are included at the end of the article.

Published

2017-01-31

Issue

Section

Full Length Articles