Impact of a music intervention on heart rate variability in very preterm infants

SUMMARY

Infants born very preterm spend their early postnatal life in a neonatal intensive care unit, where irregular and unpredictable sounds replace the structured and familiar intrauterine auditory environment. Music interventions may contribute to alleviate these deleterious effects by reducing stress and providing a form of environmental enrichment.

This was an ancillary study as part of a blinded randomised controlled clinical trial entitled the effect of music on preterm infant's brain development. It measured the impact of music listening on the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the authors, led by Prof. Olivier Baud, assessed heart rate variability (HRV) through high-resolution recordings of heart rate monitoring, at three specific postmenstrual ages in premature infants.

From 29 included subjects, 18 were assessed for complete HRV dataset, including nine assigned to the music intervention and nine to the control group. Postmenstrual age appeared to be the main factor influencing HRV from 33 weeks to term equivalent age. Further analyses did not reveal any detectable effect of music intervention on ANS response.

This study found that ANS responses were not modified by recorded music intervention in very preterm infants during wakefulness or sleep onset. Further research is warranted to explore other factors influencing ANS development in this population.

Full article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.17500

Why is this important?

Preterm infants experience a noisy and unpredictable environment in neonatal intensive care, unlike the structured auditory surroundings of the uterus. This study explored whether music interventions could positively affect heart rate variability (HRV), a key marker of autonomic nervous system (ANS) function. In a trial with 29 infants, researchers found no significant changes in HRV from music exposure. However, the study highlights the need to explore other ways to support ANS development in this population.

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