Music and The Unborn
Ground breaking advances in technology are providing a new window into the world of the unborn. Over the past two decades new research in embryology and fetal studies using intrauterine photography, ultrasound imaging, the scanning electron microscope and other high tech equipment are revealing babies come into the world with well developed senses of touch, taste and hearing. Even in the womb babies express and respond to emotions, they smile and cry and are social beings interacting with voices, music and other stimuli in the environment of the expectant mother. Most ancient cultures believed communication with the unborn child was possible even in the first weeks of gestation. Our modern laboratories are beginning to prove exactly how accurate these ancient cultures were.
As our scientific enquires begin to penetrate to increasingly subtle levels of embryology many of the beliefs of the ancients we previously dismissed as superstitions are being proven accurate. Many ancient people spoke and sang to their unborn children and assumed there was an appreciation of music and other events outside the womb. The beginning of the ear appears at 3 weeks of gestation and becomes functional at 16 weeks. Many neonatalogists and obstetricians now believe the fetus responds to music and the voices of its parents even prior to the completion of the mechanism of the ear with an overall sentience of its entire being perhaps registering responses with its developing skeletal system. Studies have revealed newborns respond to and prefer the voices of mom and dad immediately after birth which would not be possible without a long familiarity.
Newborns will also prefer music they have become accustomed to prior to their birth. I know a mother who watched a daily soap opera whose newborn little girl would turn with obvious delight when the theme song began to emerge from the television. Fetuses have been known to turn toward music they find pleasing and even to dance in rhythm with marked responsiveness. The soothing effect of the roar of the ocean's breaking waves on the shore or a rapidly rushing river may have its origins in our experiences in the womb of mom's heartbeat and the flow of rushing blood.
All of these findings are blowing up the historically materialistic view of conventional Western science that the nervous system of the growing child was too "immature" to register or respond to stimuli. Lullabies are universal and many cultures begin singing to their child long before its birth. The famous French obstetrician Michel Odent feels the loss of this intimate connection of love expressed through the musical voice of a parent is one of the tragedies of modern living. Many cultures openly developed a relationship with the child prior to birth, speaking to it often, including it lovingly in family discussions and looking for information and communication with the child in dreams. We now know this is not superstition or wishful thinking on the part of expectant parents but is the roots of developing an intimate reciprocal relationship.
Modern medicine continues to view itself as the repository of superior knowledge but I have found the folk wisdom of the ancients still lives in the hearts of many new parents. This wisdom can on occasion eclipse the best scientific knowledge available. As a post partum doula I am hired to help mom and dad learn how to care for their newly born child as they settle into the previously uncharted territory of family life. I am hired primarily to be an emotional support but also the holder of the latest facts and information and this is why it is all the more pleasurable when suddenly the roles are reversed and I feel humbled before the innate wisdom of a new parent.
One rainy afternoon in winter I got a call to support the parents of twins. The infants were miracle babies and their parents wise in inexplicable ways. When I reported for work that first morning I was met at the door by a tired but engaging new mother. I settled into the couch in the cluttered living room as Charlotte explained the history of her new family. The identical girls had been born at 32 weeks of gestation (8 weeks before term) and had spent almost 10 days in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. The pregnancy had been high risk and the doctors had recommended at 16 weeks of gestation that one of the twins be "selectively terminated." Peter and Charlotte gambled with fate and won. Looking now at the tiny, "intimately bonded for life" sisters sleeping side by side in the crib they shared such an option seemed unthinkable.
Charlotte went on to explain the facts of her trying pregnancy. At exactly 12 days of gestation, 4 days after the twins began to separate into individual entities the amniotic sac did not split into two sacs as it should have. The tiny embryos were destined to go through the full arc of gestation inhabiting one amniotic sac. The condition is called mono amino and the dangers include the potential for the babies to grow together and become Siamese twins or for the two umbilical chords bringing nourishment and oxygen to the developing fetuses to get tangled and knotted until blocked. The danger of one fetus becoming what is called a "silent twin," who eventually dies for lack of nourishment, after the life-giving chord is choked off, is statistically pronounced.
As fate would have it, these little girls' father's ear was not tuned to hear statistics and medical predictions. Peter relied obstinately on his own belief in the transformational power of music and the living connection he and his wife established between their voices and their unborn babies. It was several weeks into my assignment before I actually met Peter but my observations of his thriving premature twins had led me to appreciate the invisible, yet tangible, net of confidence he created, protecting the whole household.
Each morning I would arrive at 7:00 AM to be met at the door by my exhausted new mother. With the extra pair of hands in the house Charlotte would proceed with pumping breast milk so it would to be available for me to give the babies while she napped. Like a gripping serial each day I heard the next installment in their amazing story. Peter was a rock musician who arrived home from work at 3:00 AM, cared for the twins until 6:00 AM and then would sleep until after my departure in the early afternoon. As the weeks went by my curiosity began to grow. I had been told he was a New Zealander by birth and from the casual family photos on the refrigerator I saw a large young man with a shock of red hair and the wild energy of an ancient Scot clansman. I couldn't help but think to myself, "I'll place odds that guy's rock and roll cooks."
The evidence of a life devoted to music filled up the tiny house. Several drums, two guitars and a keyboard had causally found a place to live beside the crib the girls shared, the changing table and the breast pump. Stacks of books and hundreds of CD's filled the built-in shelving, revealing a profoundly eclectic taste in music: cultures and places, old and new, experimental and established. He was a true devotee. Slowly the story began to emerge of how Peter had undertaken a delicately balanced regimen of music and voice therapy throughout the pregnancy to keep both twins thriving. He and Charlotte would wait for the movement of the unborn babies to indicate they were awake to begin playing gentle, simple and melodic music from around the globe. He felt the ubiquitous flute found in all cultures was appropriate and would speak in turn to each twin, explaining the importance of them working with the process of growth they were involved in and how the music could be a source of sustenance. Charlotte would position her chair so the music could be directly pointed at the twin inhabiting that side of her quickly expanding stomach. Charlotte and Peter then would speak directly to the twin in question asking her to listen and involve herself in the process. No one will ever know exactly why these little girls continued to thrive until they crossed that boundary where they could safely live outside the womb. Can anyone quantify the simple miracle of the human voice or define the healing power of music?
Finally the day arrived when Charlotte asked me to stay late. Peter would be getting up to relieve me in the early afternoon. He emerged from the bedroom on cue with his red hair standing out like Albert Einstein, his presence filling the room like sunshine. Annika and Kianna, the identical little girls (whose names had the same letters in different order) where both awake. True to form he spoke to them both directly, picking up Kianna in one big hand casually. Still under seven pounds she fit in his hand like a loaf of bread. No fawning baby talk, no sweet cooing. He asked them straight questions and listened profoundly to every wiggle, movement and sigh, fully engaged in the communication. The tiny girls responded from long practice emoting with their whole bodies a preverbal form of communication which didn't need specific words to convey its substance.
I was dying to tell Peter I had been amazed by his remarkable application of music therapy and ask him if he was aware of the groundbreaking studies that substantiate the sensitivity of unborn children to music. I only got half of my comment out before a hilariously irreverent laugh from Peter stopped me. "Sometimes you just get big-lucky," he said, making it obvious he wasn't really interested in an intellectual analysis of the variables.
In the course of my work I sometimes pray for an opportune moment to share all the wealth of information now emerging about prenatal sensitivity and responsiveness or the cutting edge new studies about newborns and how awake, aware and interactive they are. Somehow I got the feeling this was one family that didn't need any information from books, research or studies. I kept silent and marveled, wondering if science would ever catch up to the wisdom that comes from listening to our own hearts.
