Description
Pregnancy has a significant impact on a woman's life, with physiological, psychological and social changes that require a strong adaptive capacityfrom women. Perinatal care needs to be one of the main concerns in societies that want to be self-sustainable, as good care during this period is also
linked to social and economic gains. The provision of social support networks can constitute a self-sustainable strategy to promote perinatal mental
health in today's societies where the interaction between generations and cultural transmission tends to be decreasing. In ancestral cultures,
women’s collective singing is a practice of social cohesion, with vocalization and humming being a common practice of empowering women during
childbirth. Although collective singing brings benefits to wellbeing and social filiation there are still few studies of using prenatal singing during
pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, the effects of humming and vocalizing on childbirth raise sociocultural questions about viability and
effectiveness in a hospital context. Music therapy songwriting to the fetus and to preterm infants has been highlighted as a strategy to improve
maternal-fetal bonding and also the mental health of mothers of preterm infants in the NICU. However, the benefits of these parental songs for
maternal mental health, maternal-fetal bonding and neonatal behaviour are still unclear. The exploratory SingingWomb project (2022.01750.PTDC)
was carried out with low obstetric risk pregnant women in the third trimester who participated in a prenatal singing sessions, using two different
approaches. Promising results were found in the music therapy group, with improvements in prenatal attachment, higher consistency in fetal cardiac
responses to live maternal voice compared to silence periods, improvement in neonatal behavior in terms of higher range of state; flow-ball devices
appear to optimize maternal voice resonance, with Less breathy phonation which seems to be associated with stronger prenatal bonding. This
highlights the primordial role of prenatal singing as a maternal-fetal vibroacoustic sensory experience that appears to enhance prenatal bonding.
Thus, my project aims to clarify the benefits of humming and singing to promote maternal-fetal bonding as well as to improve neonatal behaviour. In
addition, this project aims to analyze the feasibility and effectiveness of women's vocalizations during childbirth and maternal humming while
breastfeeding.
| Period | 30 Sept 2024 → 29 Nov 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Concurso Estímulo ao Emprego Científico Individual - : 7.ª Edição 2024.08408.CEECIND |
| Event type | Other |
| Location | Lisbon, PortugalShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |