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  • Clinical Research Article
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Music for pain relief of minor procedures in term neonates

Pediatric Research volume 95, pages 679–683 (2024)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 29 September 2023

This article has been updated

Abstract

Background

Music for neonatal pain has not been exclusively studied in term neonates in a well-designed trial compared to the standard of care. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of music intervention as an adjuvant in relieving acute pain in term newborns undergoing minor painful procedures.

Methods

This randomized, controlled, blinded trial included any term neonate undergoing heel prick. Both control and intervention groups received oral sucrose 2 min before heel prick. Intervention group was exposed to ‘Bedtime Mozart’ lullaby recorded music via bedside speakers. Pain was measured using Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) at 1-min intervals. Investigators were blinded using noise-canceling headphones that played random music.

Results

A total of 100 neonates were enrolled. Mean gestational age was 39.2 weeks, and mean duration of the procedure was 113 s. Music group was found to have significantly lower pain scores [OR = 0.42 (0.31, 0.56), p < 0.001]. Baseline NIPS scores were similar across groups and there was no interaction effect between groups and time. When NIPS were categorized as pain and no pain, there continued to be statistically significant lower NIPS scores in the music group (p < 0.001).

Conclusion

Recorded music, in addition to sucrose, is efficacious in reducing pain, encouraging its use in term neonates.

Impact

  • Recorded music effectively reduces pain induced by minor procedures in term neonates.

  • Clinical studies have shown that live and recorded music induces changes in vital signs and pain scores in the NICU’s predominantly preterm population.

  • Most of these studies were also conducted in the white ethnic population.

  • Our study objectively proves reduction in pain scores by using recorded music in a randomized, controlled, blinded study of predominantly non-white, term neonates.

  • Recorded music is effective in reducing acute pain in term neonates and can be widely used even in low-resource nurseries.

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Fig. 1: Flow diagram of patient allocation as per CONSORT guidelines.
Fig. 2: Mean NIPS scores measured across time and compared between groups.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Change history

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the families of the patients for their support and the nurses, nursery staff members, patient care technician Wendy Contreras, resident physician Dr Samantha Arevalo-Marcano, and pediatric program director Dr Magda Mendez from Lincoln Medical & Mental Health Center for helping with the data collection process. We also would like to thank Wendi Xiao from A.I. DuPont Children’s Hospital, DE, for her initial help with biostatistics.

Funding

Statistical analysis work was supported by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number U54‑GM104941 (PI: Hicks).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Lincoln Medical & Mental Health Center, Bronx, NY, USA

    Saminathan Anbalagan, Juan H. Velasquez, Denisse Staufert Gutierrez, Sailaja Devagiri, Daniel Nieto & Pratibha Ankola

  2. Department of Pediatrics/Neonatology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Saminathan Anbalagan

  3. Department of Pediatrics/Neonatology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Juan H. Velasquez

  4. Department of Pediatrics/Developmental Medicine, UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Denisse Staufert Gutierrez

  5. Department of Pediatrics/Neonatology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA

    Sailaja Devagiri

  6. Department of Pediatrics, Family Health Centers of Southwest, Florida, Cape Coral, FL, USA

    Daniel Nieto

  7. Department of Obstetrics/Neonatology, BronxCare Health System & Icahn School of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA

    Pratibha Ankola

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  1. Saminathan Anbalagan
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Contributions

These authors contributed equally: J.H.V. and S.A. J.H.V., S.A., and D.S.G. conceptualized, designed the study and the data collection instruments, collected data, performed the initial data analysis, drafted, reviewed, and revised the manuscript. D.N. and S.D. designed the data collection instruments, helped register the trial, collected data, and reviewed and revised the manuscript. P.A. conceptualized and designed the study, coordinated, and supervised data collection, and critically reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Saminathan Anbalagan.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Consent to participate

Written informed consent was obtained from participants’ parents or legal guardians to participate in the study.

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The original online version of this article was revised: the music used for this study is from an album called ‘Bedtime Mozart’ and not necessarily music composed by Mozart. Any references to Mozart music have been corrected accordingly.

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Anbalagan, S., Velasquez, J.H., Staufert Gutierrez, D. et al. Music for pain relief of minor procedures in term neonates. Pediatr Res 95, 679–683 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41390-023-02746-4

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