Music therapy reduces stress, anxiety and depression during pregnancy

Music therapy can reduce psychological stress among pregnant women, according to research just published in a special complementary and alternative therapy medicine issue of the UK-based Journal of Clinical Nursing. Researchers from the College of Nursing at Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan, randomly assigned 116 pregnant women to a music group and 120 to a control group. "The music group showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety and depression after just two weeks, using three established measurement scales" says Professor Chung-Hey Chen, who is now based at the National Cheng Kung University. "In comparison, the control group showed a much smaller reduction in stress, while their anxiety and depression scores showed little or no improvement. "Women in the music group also expressed preferences for the type of... [read full story]