Presentation Information

Family Centered Music Therapy to Manage Pain in the NICU

• Speaker: Alexandra Ullsten , PhD, Music & Art Therapist
• Presentation Type:
• Duration: 60 Mins
• Credits: 1 CERP, 1 Nursing CEU, 1 CME

Abstract:

Parenting pain away with combined parental live lullaby singing, skin-to-skin care and breastfeeding, is a recent and currently ongoing movement across NICUs and healthcare globally, but few NICUs have fully embraced parent inclusion. Parent-provided pain management is more than simply a humane and compassionate concept. The inclusion of parents has been scientifically proven to be one of the most effective ways to reduce pain associated with repeated painful procedures in early life and parents report a desire to participate. Cutting-edge results are presented from the ongoing interdisciplinary, multicenter, mixed methods project “Parents as pain management in Swedish neonatal care (SWEpap)”, an internationally pioneering study incorporating parents’ lullaby singing. In SWEpap, music therapy and nursing research mobilizes parents’ pain alleviating resources striving to close the knowledge-to-practice gap and facilitate change of clinical practice. The project’s qualitative results show that the parents’ live singing facilitated parental participation and parent-infant closeness helping the family calm down during the procedure.