Development of family-centred care informing Nordic neonatal music therapy

Abstract

Abstract. - Since the 1990s, the concept of family-centred care, where the family and healthcare staff share responsibility for the infant’s hospital care, has been part of an ongoing paradigm shift in neonatal care globally. The public health care system with family-friendly parental leave policies might be one of the reasons that the Nordic countries today are at the forefront of welcoming and including parents and partners in the care of their infant round the clock. When implementing neonatal music therapy (NICU MT) in the context of Nordic health care, music therapy models of practice as well as research ought to be defined and shaped by the family-centred care model, which today is considered best practice. The Nordic context also offers favourable conditions for further developing NICU MT approaches in line with family-centred care. NICU MT was first developed in the USA in the 1980s and the interventions were infantfocused, emphasising the infant’s physical and medical needs, which was the existing care focus in neonatal care at that time. Neonatal music therapy and research in the Nordic countries is still in its infancy. Systematic implementation work was first initiated in Karlstad, Sweden in 2010 and in Akershus and Oslo, Norway in 2017. This essay provides the international music therapy field as well as other professionals in paediatric and neonatal health care an insight into the evolving Nordic approach of NICU MT. The conclusion of this essay is that the familycentred care approach in the Nordic NICUs, combined with the progressive family politics in the Nordic countries with generous parental leave schemes and gender equality in childcare, afford important prerequisites to further develop NICU MT as a truly family-centred approach.