European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background:  Preeclampsia is a serious complication encountered during pregnancy. It is reported that pre-eclampsia nearly affects 5-10% of all the mothers and babies posing them risks. The conventional treatment to manage the preeclampsia is with anti-hypertensive drugs, bed rest and early delivery, which may lead to the other complications such as elevated liver enzymes, hepatitis, hepatic necrosis, xerostomia and others. In this aspect, alternative option such as music therapy, which is safer, looks as a promising strategy to the health care community. The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of instrumental soothing music in reducing the blood pressure among pre-eclamptic women. Materials and Methods: A quasi experimental study was carried out among fifty hospitalized pre-eclamptic pregnant women, who were assigned into experimental and control groups (n =25 in each group) using non-randomissation. Experimental group received, 60 minutes of a single session of instrumental soothing music along with conventional therapy for 14 days. The control group received only conventional therapy. Patient’s systolic and diastolic blood pressures were measured before and after the instrumental soothing music and results were recorded and interpreted. Results: There was a significant difference in the systolic and diastolic blood pressure among both the groups. Experimental group exhibited remarkable reduction in systolic and diastolic pressure after each instrumental soothing music listening session (p<0.05). There was no distinctive decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressure in control group (p>0.05). The experimental group exhibited a significant reduction in the incidence of caesarean section, eclampsia and babies with intra uterine growth retardation compared to the control group.

Conclusion: Instrumental soothing music intervention reduces the blood pressure in pre-eclamptic pregnant women. It improves the total well-being of preeclamptic mother and baby.