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INTRODUCTION
Music Therapy is a relatively young field that was organized during the 1950s in the United States of America. It belongs to the behavioral sciences and therefore is based on a scientific approach. Its primary goal is to help clients use the expressive experiences of music to improve or enhance their level of physical, psychological and socio-emotional functioning. Most frequently, a music therapist works within an interdisciplinary team. It is our hope that this will also be realized within the birthing scenario of the future, so that the music therapist will interact directly with the obstetrician, the nurse, the midwife, the neonatologist and the anesthesiologist. Currently there are some cases in which a music therapist is working with an obstetrician. Music therapy is thus beginning to emerge as another discipline that offers assistance to pregnant women. In general, we have found that music therapy treatment during pregnancy guides future parents, and mothers in particular, to connect and bond with their babies in a different way.
This bond is conscious and strengthened by using the effect of music engaged with therapeutical activities within a group context. This kind of treatment improves the quality of pregnancy, labor, and birth because it lowers the mother's level of anxiety as well as neonatal stress. It also eases pain during labor contractions and birth. From the therapeutical point of view, the future mother becomes much more involved in the three fundamental areas of her pregnancy: physical, psychological and emotional states. The baby will be drawn to the melodies that will be remembered in utero, and these will stimulate its neural axis. Music will also enhance active movement of its limbs thus improving oxygen intake via a general increase of the exchange of fluids. These movements also produce a relaxed condition in the future mother, which enables further connection to her physical sensations produced by the baby. Music works as an interactive neurotransmitter affecting the cellular system and the hypophysis of the fetus. This sets a track of a variety of sensations that will be recorded by the fetus and remind him of the pleasant experiences he lived while in utero.
PSYCHOPROPHYLACTIC MUSIC THERAPY
The work with pregnant women can be termed psychoprophylactic music therapy. This term involves two...