https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3892-4706
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ABSTRACT
Introduction
Music therapy (MT) is a part of standard care in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) in many countries, and in some countries is provided as a post-discharge service as well. However, it is rare that preterm families are offered continuous MT services from birth through their first months at home. Affiliated with a recent longitudinal, controlled trial of MT for parent-infant bonding and an associated qualitative study exploring lived experiences of MT post-discharge in an Israeli cohort of parent participants, this study aimed to understand parents’ experiences of engaging in longer-term MT with their preterm infants, spanning from birth into six months in a different Israeli cohort from the main trial.
Method
We completed an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of parents’ experiences of music therapy with their preterm infants. Semi-structured interviews intertwining listening to audio recordings from MT sessions were conducted with seven participants from five families of the main trial. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed following principles of IPA.
Results
The analysis resulted in the construction of two super-ordinate themes: (a) MT as a therapeutic haven, and (b) MT enabling integration of music into relationship over time.
Discussion
Experiences of a small cohort of Israeli parents suggest that MT spanning from birth to home may play a role in supporting parental musical agency and enhancing parent-infant relationship building.
Disclosure statement
Claire Ghetti is Associate editor of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. To avoid conflict of interest, Ghetti was fully masked to the editorial process including peer review and editorial decisions and had no access to records of this manuscript. No other potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 The second and fourth authors served as supervisors of the first author’s doctoral research. The third author served as site co-investigator for the Israeli site in the main trial and provided critical interdisciplinary perspectives on the current findings. The fourth author led the development of the resource-oriented music therapy intervention used in the main trial.
2 A safe haven is “a place, a situation, or an activity which provides people with an opportunity to escape from things that they find unpleasant or worrying” (Collins dictionary).
3 All names are pseudonyms.
4 The holy day of the week celebrated by Jewish orthodox every Friday evening.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Shulamit Epstein
Shulamit Epstein is a music therapist and a PhD candidate at the University of Haifa. She practices Neonatal music therapy and is a research assistant at the Meir medical center in Israel. Shulamit also works as a clinical practice supervisor for music therapists and music therapy MA students at the University of Haifa. In the last 10 years, she has specialized in working with autistic children and their families. She has published articles on music therapy with preterm infants and children on the autistic spectrum with international collaborations.
Cochavit Elefant (Phd.) is a Music Therapist and Head of graduate training course in music therapy at the School for Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Israel and a researcher at the Emily Sagol Research Center. Previously worked as Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. She received her PhD in Music Therapy from Aalborg University. She has an extensive clinical experience with children, Autism and developmental disabilities. Her research areas include music therapy and communication in children with developmental disabilities, autism, mental health, neurological disorders, neonatal and Community Music therapy. She has published many articles and co-authored a book titled ‘Where Music Helps. Community Music Therapy in Action and Reflection’ and co-edited a book in Music Therapy research in Hebrew.
Cochavit Elefant
Cochavit Elefant (Phd.) is a Music Therapist and Head of graduate training course in music therapy at the School for Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Israel and a researcher at the Emily Sagol Research Center. Previously worked as Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. She received her PhD in Music Therapy from Aalborg University. She has an extensive clinical experience with children, Autism and developmental disabilities. Her research areas include music therapy and communication in children with developmental disabilities, autism, mental health, neurological disorders, neonatal and Community Music therapy. She has published many articles and co-authored a book titled ‘Where Music Helps. Community Music Therapy in Action and Reflection’ and co-edited a book in Music Therapy research in Hebrew.
Shmuel Arnon
Shmuel Arnon is a Doctor of Medicine, head of the well-baby unit at Meir Medical Center, Kfar-Saba, Israel. He is an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University and the secretary of the Israeli Neonatal Society. His main research interests are music therapy for preterm infants and postnatal morbidity of the very low birth weight infants.
Cochavit Elefant (Phd.) is a Music Therapist and Head of graduate training course in music therapy at the School for Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Israel and a researcher at the Emily Sagol Research Center. Previously worked as Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. She received her PhD in Music Therapy from Aalborg University. She has an extensive clinical experience with children, Autism and developmental disabilities. Her research areas include music therapy and communication in children with developmental disabilities, autism, mental health, neurological disorders, neonatal and Community Music therapy. She has published many articles and co-authored a book titled ‘Where Music Helps. Community Music Therapy in Action and Reflection’ and co-edited a book in Music Therapy research in Hebrew.
Claire Ghetti
Claire Ghetti is a Professor of Music Therapy at the Grieg Academy Music Therapy Research Centre (GAMUT), The Grieg Academy – Department of Music, University of Bergen. Claire’s research centers on how music and the relationships that are enabled through musicking serve as resources for health in intensive medical contexts. She has been a principal investigator of the multinational randomized controlled trial LongSTEP evaluating the impact of music therapy on parent-infant bonding in the context of prematurity (Research Council of Norway, RCN 273534). Claire has published research and theoretical work in the area of music therapy as a resource for parents of premature infants, music therapy as procedural support for invasive medical procedures, and music therapy for children, youth and their families in intensive medical contexts.
Cochavit Elefant (Phd.) is a Music Therapist and Head of graduate training course in music therapy at the School for Creative Arts Therapies, University of Haifa, Israel and a researcher at the Emily Sagol Research Center. Previously worked as Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. She received her PhD in Music Therapy from Aalborg University. She has an extensive clinical experience with children, Autism and developmental disabilities. Her research areas include music therapy and communication in children with developmental disabilities, autism, mental health, neurological disorders, neonatal and Community Music therapy. She has published many articles and co-authored a book titled ‘Where Music Helps. Community Music Therapy in Action and Reflection’ and co-edited a book in Music Therapy research in Hebrew.