When Parents Can't Be There, Can a Recorded Song Help a Premature Baby?

A plain-language look at a Japanese study testing recordings of parents singing to preterm infants (Aoki et al., Children, 2025)

A small study from Japan found that playing a recording of a parent singing helped premature babies breathe a little more calmly [1]. Babies who listened to their own parent's recorded song for 30 minutes a day showed a modest, measurable drop in how fast they were breathing, and a very slight rise in their blood-oxygen levels, compared with babies who received ordinary care. The idea was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, when hospitals stopped parents from visiting the newborn intensive care unit, and researchers wanted a simple, safe way for a parent's voice to reach their baby even when the parent couldn't be at the bedside. The findings are encouraging and reassuring, though the study was small and cannot yet tell us whether the songs make a lasting difference.

Why This Question Matters

Being born too early is the most common reason newborns become seriously ill, and it happens far more often than most people realize — roughly 13 million babies worldwide are born prematurely every year, about one in ten births [2]. Babies born many weeks early can face a long road, with higher chances of breathing problems and developmental challenges that can stretch well beyond infancy [3]. Their breathing and heart rates are often unsteady, and they may need to stay in the hospital for weeks or months.

For decades, doctors and nurses have understood that these babies do best when their care extends beyond machines and medicines to include their parents. Involving parents — through touch, closeness, and voice — helps babies settle and helps families bond [4]. This is why a parent's presence at the bedside is treated as part of the care itself, not just a visit.

Then the pandemic arrived. To limit the spread of infection, hospitals across Japan and around the world closed their doors to visitors, including parents of babies in intensive care [5]. For families, this was heartbreaking. Being separated from a hospitalized newborn is deeply stressful, and depression is already common among mothers and fathers whose babies are in intensive care even in normal times [6]. Parents wanted to help their babies and could not be there to do it. Doctors wondered whether there was a way to bring a piece of the parent to the bedside when the parent could not come in person.

The Idea: A Parent's Voice on Tape

One appealing possibility was sound. Music and voice can be recorded and played to a baby without anyone needing to be physically present. Earlier research had suggested that music could help settle premature babies — improving their vital signs, feeding, and sleep [7]. But a parent's own voice might be something special. Newborns can recognize their mother's voice and respond to it differently than to a stranger's, and a mother's voice appears to help build the parts of a baby's brain involved in language [8]. An earlier study had even linked hearing a mother's voice to better development later on [9]. So the researchers in Miyazaki, Japan, asked a straightforward question: if parents recorded themselves singing at home, would playing those recordings help their premature babies [1]?

How the Study Worked

The study was a randomized controlled trial — the gold-standard way to test whether something truly works. Babies were sorted, essentially by a coin flip made by computer, into one of two groups, so that the two groups would be as similar as possible and any difference could fairly be credited to the songs [1]. It took place at the University of Miyazaki Hospital between October 2022 and March 2024, during and just after the pandemic.

Parents of every baby in the study recorded themselves singing a lullaby or a favorite song. Babies in the first group heard their parent's recording for 30 minutes each day at the same time, played softly — the recorder was kept about 20 centimeters (8 inches) from the baby's ears at a gentle volume, following safety guidance about protecting babies from loud noise [10]. The songs were played from when the baby was old enough for its hearing to be ready until it reached the equivalent of about 37 weeks of pregnancy. Babies in the second group received the usual careful care in a quiet, noise-monitored environment. To keep the results fair, the parents and the people measuring the babies' vital signs did not know which group each baby was in.

The babies in the study were very premature — most were born around 28 weeks of pregnancy (a full-term pregnancy is about 40 weeks), and about three-quarters had needed a breathing tube at birth. In all, 33 babies were included in the results: 17 who heard the songs and 16 who did not. That is a small number, and it matters for how much weight we place on the findings.

What They Found

The clearest result was in the babies' breathing. During each session, babies listening to their parent's song slowed their breathing by about 3 breaths per minute, while the babies not listening actually sped up slightly. That difference was statistically solid, meaning it is very unlikely to be due to chance. The babies' blood-oxygen levels also nudged upward in the song group, but only by a tiny amount — enough to measure, but small enough that it probably makes little practical difference. Heart rate and how active or sleepy the babies were did not differ between the groups.

The researchers also asked parents about their sense of closeness to their baby, using a standard questionnaire at discharge. The scores were high and similar to what other studies have found — a hopeful sign that, even during a time of enforced separation, parents felt bonded to their babies. Recording and sending in the songs may have given parents a real way to feel connected and involved.

On safety, the news was reassuring. One baby in the song group turned out to have severe hearing loss, but medical imaging showed this was caused by a condition the baby was born with, completely unrelated to the recordings. No other problems occurred. This fits with what earlier research has shown: gentle music and voice, played at safe volumes, rarely cause any harm [11].

What This Means for Families

If your baby is in the NICU, this study offers a gentle, practical takeaway: a recording of your voice singing may help your baby settle, and it is safe. It costs almost nothing and needs only a simple recording device. Perhaps most importantly, when you cannot be at the bedside — because of an illness, a long distance, work, or restrictions like those during the pandemic — recording a song is a genuine way to be present for your baby and to take part in their care.

It is worth being clear-eyed, too. This was a single, small study, and it measured only the immediate effect on babies' breathing during each session, not whether the songs change how babies grow up or how long they stay in the hospital. The improvement in breathing was real but modest, and the oxygen change was tiny. A parent's recorded song is best thought of as a comforting, connecting addition to good medical care — not a replacement for any treatment. It is the kind of small, humane thing that can make a frightening time feel a little more like home.

What Researchers Are Working On Next

The most important questions are still open. Does hearing a parent's song day after day help premature babies over the long run — with their development, their bonding, or their recovery? So far the wider evidence is cautious. A major review that gathered together many studies of music and voice for premature babies concluded there is not yet enough certainty about long-term benefits [11], and a large trial that followed children for two years did not find a lasting developmental advantage from music therapy [12]. Because prematurity affects so many families worldwide, and because parents so often cannot be present as much as they wish, researchers hope to run larger studies across many hospitals, following the babies for years, to learn whether this simple and loving idea delivers benefits that last. For now, what the science says is clear enough to act on gently: your voice matters to your baby, and there are ways to share it even from afar.

References

  1. Aoki Y, Kota Y, Shimada M, Taniguchi T, Yamauchi S, Matsusaka M, Hamasuna K, Watanabe Y, Kodama Y, Moritake H. Effects of Songs Recorded by Parents on the Vital Signs of Preterm Infants: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Children (Basel). 2025;12(2):146. doi:10.3390/children12020146 ↩
  2. Ohuma EO, Moller AB, Bradley E, et al. National, regional, and global estimates of preterm birth in 2020, with trends from 2010: A systematic analysis. Lancet. 2023;402:1261–1271. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00878-400878-4) ↩
  3. Saigal S, Doyle LW. An overview of mortality and sequelae of preterm birth from infancy to adulthood. Lancet. 2008;371:261–269. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)60136-160136-1) ↩
  4. Als H, Lawhon G, Duffy FH, McAnulty GB, Gibes-Grossman R, Blickman JG. Individualized developmental care for the very low-birth-weight preterm infant. Medical and neurofunctional effects. JAMA. 1994;272:853–858. doi:10.1001/jama.1994.03520110033025 ↩
  5. Murray PD, Swanson JR. Visitation restrictions: Is it right and how do we support families in the NICU during COVID-19? J Perinatol. 2020;40:1576–1581. doi:10.1038/s41372-020-00781-1 ↩
  6. Garfield CF, Lee YS, Warner-Shifflett L, Christie R, Jackson KL, Miller E. Maternal and paternal depression symptoms during NICU stay and transition home. Pediatrics. 2021;148:e2020042747. doi:10.1542/peds.2020-042747 ↩
  7. Loewy J, Stewart K, Dassler AM, Telsey A, Homel P. The effects of music therapy on vital signs, feeding, and sleep in premature infants. Pediatrics. 2013;131:902–918. doi:10.1542/peds.2012-1367 ↩
  8. Uchida-Ota M, Arimitsu T, Tsuzuki D, Dan I, Ikeda K, Takahashi T, Minagawa Y. Maternal speech shapes the cerebral frontotemporal network in neonates: A hemodynamic functional connectivity study. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2019;39:100701. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100701 ↩
  9. Nöcker-Ribaupierre M, Linderkamp O, Riegel KP. The effects of mothers' voice on the long term development of premature infants: A prospective randomized study. Music Med. 2015;7:20–25. doi:10.47513/mmd.v7i3.406 ↩
  10. Wachman EM, Lahav A. The effects of noise on preterm infants in the NICU. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2011;96:F305–F309. doi:10.1136/adc.2009.182014 ↩
  11. Haslbeck FB, Mueller K, Karen T, Loewy J, Meerpohl JJ, Bassler D. Musical and vocal interventions to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes for preterm infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2023;9:CD013472. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD013472 ↩
  12. Bieleninik L, Kvestad I, Gold C, et al. Music therapy in infancy and neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm children: A secondary analysis of the LongSTEP randomized clinical trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7:e2410721. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.10721 ↩