Classical Music Reduces Pregnancy Stress

For their study, the team split the subjects into two groups, with 116 given music CDs and 120 acting as controls. The women given the music each received four CDs, containing about 30 minutes of music.

One CD features lullabies, a second contained classical music, a third featured nature sounds and a fourth was based on soothing crystal music of Chinese nursery rhymes and songs. The tempo of the music was set at 60 to 80 beats per minute, the same as the human heart rate.

The women were told to listen to at least one disc all the way through every day for two weeks -- the results showed those in the music group were far less stressed or depressed at the end of the study, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

Before the study, the women in the music group scored 17.44 on the perceived stress scale, which ranges from zero to 30. Afterwards, the stress levels had dropped by an average of 2.15, compared with 0.92 in the control group.