Does Mozart Help Newborn Babies?

[Celebration]

Doctors are to run trials to see if playing classical music to newborn babies helps them recover from the trauma of birth.

The decision follows a pioneering project at Kosice-saca hospital in eastern Slovakia where Mozart and other classical music is piped to newborns via headphones in the maternity ward.

Doctors there believe the music is the perfect way to keep newborn babies healthy and relaxed after the traumatic experience of being born.

And now experts at Weill Medical College at New York's Cornell University will run a study to medically prove whether the music of Mozart affects levels of stress, heart rate, and motor activity in premature babies.

[0007]

1. Sounds good to me!

[Burma Jones]

2. It couldn't hurt...........

[wake.up.america]

3. Do it ! My kids are a lot brighter than their father. We listen to...

Mozart, Händel, Schubert and Lil' Kim.

[BlueEyedSon]

5. Remeber at the 1750 Grammys, when Handel's boob fell out....?

[Burma Jones]

9. We Music-ed the hell out of our kids

they're 8 and 6 now. The 8 year old (boy) reads four grades above his level and has started basic algebra in second grade. He can also sing Ode to Joy in German and plays piano, reads music etc etc etc.

The 6 year old (girl) is in Kindergarten and reads at a second grade level, picks out melodies on our piano by ear, and is also smart and accomplished.


However, I could also attribute this to the fact that Mom stays at home, I work from home, we read to the kids every night, they get less than an hour of TV a day on weekdays and maybe two hours on weekends, we have many many many many books around the house, I earned a PhD, my wife (BA in English) is constantly keeping her Yoga Instructor credentials up by taking training, wife and I are small Liberal Arts School Grads, we assume that our children are curious and support that curiousity.

The kids were also exposed early on to Monty Python (with a judicious hand on the DVD remote) and my wife and I truly value the Absurd........

Also, I've been a professional musician and my wife was a professional actor, so creativity is a value we respect.

[BlueEyedSon]

4. My kid likes The Beatles, Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac

We're working up to Led Zep and STP.

(his first song was "Everybody's got something to hide except for me an my monkey", in the car on the way home from the hospital.)

[Eurobabe]

6. My second daughter was born to Vivaldi's Four Seasons

She was always a very calm infant.

[twiterpatted]

7. only when he's lactating

[mdmc]

8. welcome to DU!

peace and low stress

[twiterpatted]

14. a long time lurker thanks you.

[HuckleB]

10. Link?

I'm glad that this research is being done. I do believe the push re: Mozart "making" kids smarter has been shown to be false, though I've read a study regarding children exposed to piano music possibly easing into language with more ease than others.

Our three-month-old seems to relax to Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, Kieth Jarrett, Michel Petrucciani and a host of classical solo piano pieces, in addition to chamber music. And he's seemingly enjoyed Madeliene Peyroux, Willie Nelson, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and others, including The Clash and The Pogues!

[Celebration]

11. Link

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1774082.html

[bloom]

15. I like the idea of a variety of music as well

Mozart is well and good - but why only that ?!?

[Celebration]

16. Well I definitely like music other than Mozart

Personally, I would choose almost anything else. I like listening to Beethoven better, for example. But for eliciting desiriable responses in the brain, Mozart has proven to be the best--see my post below--"other Mozart studies." Well I think the headphones would be okay if you were certain that the volume would not go over a certain (low) threshold. Preferable would be little stereo speakers in the bassinets.

This may all have something to do with binaural beats, about which I posted in some other thread. The rhythms and melodies of Mozart are VERY controlled and classical--really unlike Beethoven and other composers.

[HuckleB]

17. Indeed.

It's odd how research happens. Someone does something that shows an association. Then someone makes a bundle of money, as has been done with Mozart and kids, and suddenly you have more research on Mozart showing possible associations. Alas, science is trendy. It's not perfect, but it's all we've got. Besides, my personal case study indicates that Bartok, Shchedrin, Granados, Albeniz, Ravel and Dvorák top Mozart, so far, for our little one. Of course, that's only comparing classical composers!

Salud!

[Celebration]

18. Curious

Who is making the bundle of money? There's plenty of competition in Mozart CDs.................I would think a bundle of money would be more likely to be made for a modern composer whose works were able to be copyrighted. BTW I don't think any studies have been done on the composers you mentioned. That sounds like too ALTERNATIVE for me. I would rather stick to the straight science! Such unproven music should be very suspect!!

[HuckleB]

19. Here for starters.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005YUTC/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance&n=404272

"Straight science." I love it. LOL!

----------

P.S. -- There's a lot more research out there than the few and selected ones you've offered. Here http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0920_050920_babymusic.html for example. And don't ask me to go find more. I'm spending time with my boy, listening to Keith Jarrett's Vienna Concert this morning.

[Celebration]

20. Yeah but

Couldn't you or I hire a few strings and so forth and come up with an Infant Mozart and make money on it too? If I were wanting to really make some big money I would want to come out with something for which I had intellectual property rights.........and do studies on that.

The article you pointed to is about year old babies, and attuning to music of the culture, which is a little different from the newborn angle.

[HuckleB]

21. Ahem...

It looks at how year old babies have attuned to the music of the culture during the first year of life. They already know the difference in the rhythms. And it's not likely that they learned that on day 364 of life.

Mozart products abound, and they seem to have been the precursor to reserach focused on Mozart. Meanwhile much research focused on music, in general, is ignored by the MSM. It's the old consumer society at work, skewing what we think we know.

More by researchers who think outside the consumer mainstream:

http://www.lsu.edu/highlights/041/cassidy.html

http://www.hon.ch/News/HSN/526074.html

[Celebration]

22. Agree with most

But I am still trying to figure out the angle of the Mozart studies, including one on Mozart being more favorable than Beethoven, being financially beneficial to anyone. Neither are copyrighted, and they could just as easily come out with some other composer--Beethoven for Babies.

In any case, possibly some newborns might do better on another type of music. Everyone can do their own research with their own babies and see what helps whatever they need. Does Mozart seem to help put them to sleep, be calmer, or is Beethoven equally effective? How about Hiphop? Country and Western? The Beatles? One study with Mozart winning out over Beethoven is certainly not definitive, particularly when each of them wrote many more compositions than were tested.

For those who favor classical music for their babies, I found a cheap website with downloads, for all the music you want from the classical composers. I haven't tried it, but I just might.

http://www.classicalarchives.com/intro.html

It looks like it would be enough to put the baby classical music business folks out of business--whomever the composer.

[Warpy]

12. No, but the earphones might

Without the earphones, Mozart wouldn't hurt them, anyway.

So if you like Mozart, listen to it. If you don't, listen to something else.

[Celebration]

13. Other Mozart Studies

Dev Sci. 2006 Jan;9(1):46-50.

Preference for consonance over dissonance by hearing newborns of deaf parents and of hearing parents.

Masataka N.

Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama, Japan.

Behavioral preferences for consonance over dissonance were tested in hearing infants of deaf parents and in hearing infants of hearing parents when they were 2 days old. Using a modified visual-fixation-based, auditory-preference procedure, I found that both 2-day-old infants of deaf parents and those of hearing parents looked longer at a visual stimulus when looking produced the original version of a Mozart minuet as opposed to a version altered to contain many dissonant intervals. The relative magnitude of such preference did not significantly differ whether their parents were deaf or hearing. Infants prefer consonance over dissonance, and the preference is present from birth and is not dependent on any specific prenatal or early postnatal experience

PMID: 16445395

Neurol Res. 2005 Dec;27(8):791-6.

Long-term enhancement of maze learning in mice via a generalized Mozart effect.

Aoun P, Jones T, Shaw GL, Bodner M.

MIND Institute, 1503 South Coast Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, USA.

OBJECTIVES: An animal model of the 'generalized Mozart effect' (GME) - enhanced/normalized higher brain function in response to music exposure - has been established. We extend those results in two studies using another species (mice). Study 1: (1) maze testing after music exposure was extended to a minimum of 6 hours; (2) no exposure to music in utero. Study 2: (1) music exposure time further reduced; (2) maze testing extended to 24 hours. METHODS: Study 1: two mouse groups were exposed to music continuously for 10 hours per day for 10 weeks (Group I: Mozart's Sonata K.448, Group II: Beethoven's Fur Elise). After 10 weeks, the ability to negotiate a T-maze was assessed (recording working time in maze, number of errors). Maze ability was tested 6 hours following the last music exposure. Study 2: two mouse groups were exposed periodically to music (58% silence) 10 hours per day for 10 weeks. Experiments after 10 weeks examined the groups' abilities to run the maze (recording working time/errors). Experiments were conducted 24 hours following the last music exposure. RESULTS: The Mozart group exhibited significant enhancements compared with the control mice in both studies, i.e. significantly lower working time (p<0.05) and committed fewer errors. DISCUSSION: Observation of GME in another species supports its generality for the mammalian cortex. The absence of a GME in fMRI studies for the control music also indicates a neurophysiological basis. With extended exposure, GME is a long-term effect, indicating potential clinical importance. It has been demonstrated that GME reduces neuropathological spiking significantly in epileptics. We discuss the relevance of this study for epilepsy treatment.

PMID: 16354537

Behav Med. 2003 Spring;29(1):15-9.
Listening to mozart reduces allergic skin wheal responses and in vitro allergen-specific IgE production in atopic dermatitis patients with latex allergy.

Kimata H.

Department of Allergy at Ujitakeda Hospital, Kyoto, Japan.

In atopic dermatitis patients with latex allergy, listening to Mozart reduced skin wheal responses induced by latex, but not by histamine, whereas listening to Beethoven failed to produce similar results. Listening to Mozart also decreased in vitro total IgE and latex-specific IgE production with concomitant skewing of the cytokine pattern toward the Th1 type, that is, an increase in Th1 cytokine production and decrease in Th2 cytokine production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells, whereas listening to Beethoven failed to do so. These results suggest that therapy using specific types of music may be an effective treatment of allergic diseases.


PMID: 14977243