At a neonatal unit in Wales Dr. Elizabeth Coombes saw parents struggling with trauma, anxiety, and disconnection from their premature babies. With the Music Therapy Charity’s support, she created “The Singing Unit”—a gentle, cost-effective music therapy workshop to help parents use their voices to soothe and bond with their infants.
The impact was significant. Parents reported feeling calmer, more connected and empowered. One father said, “Seeing my baby’s positive response made me feel useful.” The project not only improved wellbeing but also laid the foundation for new music therapy roles and student placements in Wales. The Music Therapy Charity’s funding enabled Elizabeth to build trust, co-design the intervention, and publish findings that continue to inspire change.
Having a baby prematurely is a very traumatic experience for the family. It usually involves a hospital admission for the baby with the family experiencing a range of challenging emotions. Parents report feeling traumatised, anxious and out of control. Additionally, bonding between parents and baby can be impacted, with Mums and Dads struggling to connect with their new arrival and build that important early familial relationship.
The provision of clinical music therapy for families can mitigate these challenges. Research has shown that this provision can support the premature baby by providing physiological and emotional regulation. This can lead to shorter hospital stays. Using music therapy to help parents develop their ability to sing with their infant helps the baby and also supports parental emotional connection to their infant.
The Singing Unit took place in 2019, and to date is the only research project relating to this area of music therapy practice in Wales. Having made links with a consultant neonatologist in a Welsh Health Board, I developed a mixed methods research project with the support of the Research and Development Office in CwmTafMorgannwg University Health Board. As part of the project, I created a low-intensity cost-effective music therapy provision as a first step in broadening access music therapy.
A psychoeducational workshop was delivered to groups of parents whose babies were staying at the neonatal unit in Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil. The workshop offered experiences of listening to music for relaxation for parents, then gave advice and opportunities to practice singing with their premature infants. Parents really responded to the workshop. They were very interested in learning about babies’ earliest in utero experiences of sound, and how to make their singing appropriate to the needs of premature babies. This means singing or humming quietly and for specified lengths of time so as not to overwhelm the baby.
We collected quantitative and qualitative data from parents before and after the workshop. We found strong evidence for improved wellbeing in parents and improvement in bonding. Parents told us they felt more connected with their babies, with one Dad saying, ‘seeing my baby’s positive response made me feel useful’. One Mum told us ‘I feel so much more love for my baby now’. Other parents used words such as ‘relaxed’ and said their eyes had been opened to ‘a different perspective’ of childcare.
We published the research in the Journal of Neonatal Nursing, and presented it to various Welsh NHS and HEIW networks. Although COVID prevented the development of this provision at the time, there are now music therapy roles developing in this trust and in North Wales building on early parent/infant music therapy. Student placements have also followed on from this project.
The project shows the importance of music therapists being able to deliver not just clinical music therapy but to think more broadly around developing bespoke psychoeducational resources using music for service users.
Elizabeth Coombes has been a music therapist for over 25 years. She is the Programme Lead for the MA Music Therapy at the University of South Wales. Her current research focusses on the benefits of music therapy for families with pre-school children who have been forcibly displaced.