SingingWomb — Music Therapy group

Music therapy sessions were designed to include improvised humming, vocal intonation, and songwriting for the unborn baby.

The sessions were led by a music therapist experienced in applying music therapy during pregnancy and another music therapist performing co-therapy functions, accompanied by a guitar.

The focus of the sessions was to promote maternal well-being, maternal Self and bonding.

Each session lasted approximately 75 minutes and was repeated weekly for five consecutive weeks. In addition to the five consecutive weeks in which these activities were carried out by the participants in group B, there were two individual online sessions whose main activity was the creation of a song for the fetus.

All sessions were planned with the same structure consisting of three stages.

The first stage of session — Self-connection

The first stage aimed to prepare and warm up the group dynamics and group cohesion. This first stage began with a welcome song accompanied by the guitar, successively naming the names of each baby or the names by which the parents designated their baby. This was followed by a body relaxation activity through synchronization between breathing and arm movements. Next, there was the proposal of a vocalization exercise with vowels ending in humming, first with ascending phrases for each vowel and then descending phrases for each vowel.

This first stage ended with a moment of verbal sharing to become aware of the sensations, feelings, thoughts and perception of the babies’ reactions.

The second stage of session — Vocal bonding

In the second phase of the session, the focus was on promoting reading of the baby’s signals and vocal bonding. At this stage, improvised humming and song writing techniques were used. For improvised humming the participants were positioned in a circle and asked to join in pairs back-to-back, or in a couple with the father behind the mother and both placing their hands on the mother’s belly in contact with the baby. The participants were asked to close their eyes and become aware of their breathing, observing the movements of their own inhalation and exhalation and those of their partner. Based in sound of the ocean drum the participants were asked to spontaneously emit during exhalation a continuous humming one note without effort to prolong it and after internalizing this sound that was unique to each one they were asked to modulate in humming the sound of each participant in harmony with the sounds of the partner and the group. Based on this two-note interval, participants were asked to improvise a humming melody directed to their baby as if this melody represented a sound and musical umbilical cord.

Another proposed activity was the representation of the rhythmic and musical portrait of the unborn baby based on the translation of the fetal movements perceived by each mother into scores that were expressed in rhythmic and melodic ostinatos in synchrony between the gestural movement and the voice. This representation of the baby’s musical portrait inspired the parents for the following stage in order to create a song for their baby.

The third stage of session — Songwriting

During the third stage, listening to songs alluding to feelings of motherhood was introduced, alternating with the verbal sharing of evocations.

Another proposal was the recreation of some of these songs by the participants as a proposal outside of the sessions.

This activity served as preparation for the composition of a song aimed at the baby, carried out in two online sessions with each participant accompanied or not by the baby’s father. The song for the baby was constructed based on a melody chosen by each participant or based on an original melody. The choice of melody or musical genre was inspired by the story of the pregnancy and the baby’s temperament as perceived by the parents. To facilitate the writing of the song, a questionnaire was sent to each participant to raise awareness of the baby’s characteristics, their tastes, relevant thoughts during pregnancy, ending with a letter addressed to unborn baby.