Browsing by Subject "sykevaihtelu"

Prenatal stress has been found to affect the development of the fetus adversely: it may increase the risk of childhood emotional and behavioural problems. Psychosocial stress during pregnancy is also related to pregnancy complications, premature birth and low birthweight. Pregnancy complications and hospitalization, in turn, often cause mothers to worry about the well-being of their unborn child. Therefore, it is important to find non-pharmacological treatments for stress. Music therapy has been shown to induce relaxation, but only a few previous studies have explored music therapy in the context of high-risk pregnancies, and in those studies the heart rate variability (HRV) has not been examined. HRV is a reliable, objective and easy method for assessing physiological stress, and it has been shown to reflect the effects of music therapy. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of music therapy on the stress levels of pregnant women in inpatient care. The participants of this study (N = 102) were on bed rest because of pregnancy-related complications. They were randomly assigned to music therapy group (N = 52) and to control group (N = 50). The music therapy group received music therapy on three consecutive days, for half an hour at a time. The control group was instructed to rest at those times. The physiological stress levels of the participants were assessed by measuring their HRV and blood pressure, and the participants also gave self-reports of their experiences during the music therapy. The physiological measures indicated that music therapy alleviated stress: HRV increased more in the music therapy group than in the control group, and low frequency (LF) variability decreased during the three days. In addition, diastolic blood pressure decreased in those participants, whose blood pressure had been elevated in the beginning. However, heart rate increased and HRV decreased between the therapy sessions, which does not support the previous finding that repetition enhances the effect of music therapy. The participants found the music therapy profoundly relaxing. Many of them especially enjoyed the resonance of the music within the body, and they felt that the music distracted them from their worries. The subjective benefits were more salient than the objectively measured physiological advantages. This may be related to the suppression of physiological responses to stress and recovery, which commonly occurs in pregnancy. In conclusion, the results suggest that music therapy is beneficial for distressed pregnant women. Consequently, music therapy is recommended also for the treatment of women with high-risk pregnancies in inpatient care.