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Calming infants & children
Animal lullaby therapy
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Music Industry Experience
 



My recording of traditional lullabies with a human heartbeat rhythm was
first tested in in 1985 at Helen Keller Hospital's newborn nursery in Sheffield AL. Nurses reported 94% of crying babies stopped crying in less than two minutes listening the music. Later that year I was invited to visit the cardiac intensive care unit at University Hospitals of Alabama Birmingham where nurses had been playing my "Heartbeat Lullabies" to help infants and children get rest and sleep needed to heal from heart surgery. I saw frightened agitated babies, stitched from their necks to their belly buttons, attached to wires and monitors miraculously calm to the music in just a few seconds. Seeing the power of this music being used in such a dramatic positive way was a life changing experience for me. In 1987, I felt called to leave the music business to devote full time to record more Heartbeat Lullabies and promote their use. Little did I know the challenges or ever imagined how many uses would be discovered to help treat infants, children, adults and even animals

Upon request, I have donated over 200,000 CDs to hospitals and
organizations helping children with special needs. The music has proven to
be a "God send" for thousands of care providers and millions of frazzled,
sleep deprived parents. The research-backed recordings have been played in
over 8,400 hospitals and special care centers to calm infants, children
adults and animals. Skeptical TV health news crews all across America have
gone into their local hospitals to see if the music will stop babies from crying. It usually only takes a few seconds.

Well over twenty million people have gone to sleep to my heartbeat Lullabies
or watched a child or adult calmed by it. People may not remember the title
of the CD or my name, but they never forget it's distinctive sound and how
fast it worked.

                                 Stop the crying / prevent abuse

In 1994 a Travis Air Force Base family advocacy nurse ordered 50 "Stops
Crying" Heartbeat Lullabies CDs to give to at-risk parents. " Constant
crying is the primary trigger for infant abuse and shaken baby syndrome. If
we give parents a nurturing way to stop and prevent the crying, we can
prevent abuse," she said. I already knew the CDs would calm crying babies,
so I set out to find reasons that could be causing the crying other than when
the baby is sick, in pain or has a basic need. I interviewed hundreds of parents about their baby's bedtime routines. I learned that in addition to being  over-stimulated and being frightened by startle sounds, something as simple as rocking a baby completely to sleep or letting her go to sleep in the parents bed before placing her in her crib, usually results in middle of the night crying.
When a baby goes to sleep in one place and wakes in another, he wants to
return the place where he went to sleep and thinks he sleeps. So he cries
to be back in his parent's bed, mother's arms, or his swing, because
that's where he fell asleep and thinks he sleeps.

Any parent who has a constant crying child is at risk to commit some
degree of physical and/or emotional abuse. Parents want to be nurturing and
respond to their baby's cry for help. But tragically, sometimes they snap
under the barrage of noise and stress that has left them sleep deprived, frustrated and desperate. It pushes them over the edge; they'll do anything, even irrational things to stop the crying.

Military family advocacy / new parent support programs, health
departments, Healthy Families sites, First Step Programs, and hospitals have
distributed more than one million copies of my Heartbeat Lullabies and
educational information to mothers to help parents and babies sleep, and to
prevent colic, infant abuse and shaken baby syndrome.

                          Is constant crying a wide spread problem?

The most frequently ask question a pediatrician gets is "How do I get my
baby to stop crying and sleep through the night?"
According to The National Sleep Foundation "Sleep in America Poll"
• More than two-thirds of all children (69%) experience sleep problems
at least a few nights a week."
• Half of Parents/caregivers of infants are awakened 6 to 7 nights a
week, 2 to 3 times per night, losing close to an hour of sleep each time.
• Infants that are put to bed awake sleep over one hour longer than babies
 put to bed after they are already asleep.
• Infants that are put to bed awake sleep and don't wake as many times
 in the night crying for attention.

 Stress and sleep deprivation weakens a parent's ability to make rational
choices.

Over the years, I have learned a lot about the power of music to
miraculously calm and heal. I've seen my "Heartbeat Lullabies" calm children
going through painful and/or frightening procedures. I've seen the music
therapy help extremely premature babies in the neonatal intensive care units
get the rest and sleep they need to heal and grow. I have received over
30,000 heart warming testimonies from appreciative parents, nurses, child
life specialists, home visitors, and other medical professionals. Some of
the stories bring tears to your eyes.

Research that playing "Heartbeat Lullabies" stops and prevents crying.

• In a published study, Indiana University School of Nursing researchers
found the music reduced pain perception and kept babies calmer during
circumcision.
• Researchers at Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron, Rainbow
Babies and Children's Hospital and Metro Health Hospital in Cleveland played
the music to help extremely premature babies get the rest and sleep they
need to heal and grow. The 7 year replicated study is submitted for
publication.

When parents play the "Heartbeat Lullabies" and follow my nurturing
bedtime routine, babies learn to peacefully adopt their own bed as their
favorite place to go to sleep and back to sleep without the constant crying.
In my audio book I tell parents how to avoid creating circumstances that
cause their baby to cry. I also include a new approach to preventing shaken
baby. Even parents who can't imagine they would do such a terrible thing
learn how easy it is to injure a fragile baby by something as common as
jiggling to stop the crying. You can listen to the audio book free at:
www.babygotosleep.com



Terry Woodford
Terry@audiotherapy.com
256-275-7360

 
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