Singing to an infant can significantly boost the baby’s mood, according to recent medical research. While singing to babies seems to come instinctively to caregivers throughout time and cultures, new findings support that singing is an easy, safe, and free way to help improve the mental well-being of infants. By surveying parents daily at random times–about infant mood, fussiness, time spent soothing, caregiver, mood and frequency of musical behavior—researchers learned that the experimental group saw significantly more positive results than the control. Because improved mood in infancy is associated with a greater quality of life for both parents and babies, this in turn has benefits for the health of the entire family, the researchers say. The researchers also see potential for alleviating post-partum depression or stress, which will be a metric of their next related study.
