Browsing by Subject "isä-lapsi-suhde"

Preterm birth increases risks for developmental delays, behavioral problems and challenges in social relationships. In addition to the risks related to prematurity, preterm birth is often very stressful and may affect parents’ ability to form a relationship with their newborn baby. The relationship and attachment between a child and their parent is an essential part of the child’s development and may also be crucial for their future well-being. Due to the importance of parent-child interaction for future development of the child and how the stress of giving birth preterm may hinder parental responsiveness, it would be important to support and secure the development of attachment between the preterm baby and their parent. One suggested way of support is through music intervention. Music interventions have been noted to have positive affections to preterm infant’s physical condition and relaxation, as well as to the parents’ well-being by lowering their stress levels and anxiety. Interventions for preterm infants have focused mostly on mother-child relationship even though it is known that both parents, often being a mother and a father, create their own roles as parents. Because of the different roles, parents also affect the child’s development slightly differently. As a result, there is a need for more research on the father-child relationship and its role in child development. In this bachelor’s thesis, I investigate if supporting the interaction between preterm infant and their father with music intervention could promote the child’s development. I searched relevant studies for the literature review from database OvidMedline and I used the following terms: preterm birth AND music therapy, preterm infants’ development, low or very low birthweight infants’ development, music-therapy, preterm birth AND fathers, fathering, parenting AND development, music-therapy AND development. In addition, I hand-searched reference lists from music therapy reviews. Only few studies reported long-term outcomes of music interventions on preterm infants. Nevertheless, there seems to be limited evidence that music intervention could enhance the interaction and relationship between preterm infant and their parent, which could also promote infant’s development. The beneficial effects were proposed to arise from enhanced reciprocal interaction between a child and their parent or from promoting parents’ well-being and giving them more resources to form a better relationship and interaction with their child. However, more research is required on short-term and long-term outcomes of music interventions for preterm infants and their parents, especially on interventions including fathers.