{"id":269574,"date":"2022-06-08T14:42:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T19:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=269574"},"modified":"2022-06-08T11:38:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T16:38:17","slug":"preemie-responds-improves-ukulele-sings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/preemie-responds-improves-ukulele-sings\/","title":{"rendered":"Preemie responds and improves when mom plays ukulele and sings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the smallest premature babies born at an Australian hospital had a secret weapon that helped him survive: his mother’s music.<\/p>\n

Alana Wilkinson is a musician, and while she was pregnant, she played the ukelele<\/a> and sang to her son as he grew in her womb. Originally planning to have a home birth in a rainforest cabin in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Wilkinson and her husband went to Lismore Hospital in an ambulance when she experienced bleeding and cramping at 24 weeks. She gave birth at Mater Mothers’ Hospital in Brisbane three days later, and at first, doctors said the chances of her son’s survival were grim.<\/p>\n

“My partner puts his two fists together, thumb to thumb, side by side, and that was the size of Raff’s body all tucked up,” Wilkinson told<\/a> the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). “It’s really confronting to see a baby that small and really confronting to see how much they have to go through in order to grow on the outside when they’re meant to still be on the inside. I just had no idea around the world of premature babies. I didn’t know anyone who had had a premature baby before.”<\/p>\n

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Their son, Rafferty Thomas Robb, was one of the smallest babies born at Mater Mothers’ Hospital in 2021, and doctors said babies born at 24 weeks have a 60% chance of survival. But Wilkinson was convinced that music would help heal him, so whenever she could, she would cradle Rafferty skin-to-skin, play her ukelele, and sing to him.<\/p>\n

READ:<\/strong>\u00a0Doctors give premature baby a tiny pacemaker in a groundbreaking surgery<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“We came in a couple of times and he’d had a really rough night. He just looked lifeless. It was really confronting to see him so unwell,” she said. “I just found that as soon as we picked him up and put him skin to skin… sitting there with my ukulele and singing to him, you could just see how much that really made a difference, seeing it reflected in the machines that monitor heart rate and breathing.”<\/p>\n