And the Beat Goes On

Know of anyone that would spend Valentine’s Day with young strangers, hugging each one, giving them $20 in a card and a box of See’s candy? He was a 19 year old “tough” guy who had a giant, loving heart.

This happened at a facility for children with emotional problems who had no family environment in which to live and were cared for by the State of Nevada. To understand this unusual event you need to know more of the story.

This young man started his life by being taken from his mother and being strapped down in the incubator under bright lights because he had a rare liver complication. Being isolated in the incubator prevented him from being held by his mother and hearing her voice or feeling her touch. Emotional damage from this affected the rest of his life. He was put on medications for his behavior, including Zoloft, and that nearly caused him to have renal failure at the age of 8. This little boy fought back and although he lived with extreme depression and anxiety , he always reached out to help those less fortunate than him.

After he was taken off the medications he took guitar lessons; playing the guitar seemed to relieve his depression and anxiety . He could not leave his house without first playing the guitar. It was his way of self medicating; the vibrations from the guitar stings helped soothe him.

He always carried the cellular memories of being tied down and blindfolded in the NICU. This surfaced when he had been hit by a car and needed complicated knee surgery. When he was strapped down and was being moved from the pre-op area to the operating room, the movement of the bed triggered such a response that he panicked, ripped out his IV and started screaming. He was emotionally out of control. A therapist in the pre-op quickly tapped under his eye, using what is known as Energy Psychology , and he calmed down; however, it became clear that birth trauma in the NICU isn’t over when we take the baby home.

The boy’s name was John, he was my son. I was the therapist in the pre-op room. John’s life was music and being a sound therapist, I began studying alternative therapies when John was on so many medications for behavior . Although his life was cut short, his life is the inspiration for my life’s work. I have spent tireless hours doing something that has never been done except in hospital studies, not knowing if it will ever reach the mothers and babies that need it, but I can feel him in my heart pushing me to keep on going.

Now back to the story!

Years ago, John and I had been invited to the Oasis Center [Las Vegas NV] Christmas party and John wanted to choose his own gifts for the children. He brought Christmas cards with $20 in each card.

When we were invited to their Valentines party, he repeated his $20 gifts but, as a special bonus, he wanted to give each child their own box of candy, See’s, no less.

On the way home from the party John cried because one of the boys was being punished and was not allow to attend the party. He felt that having no home and having to live there was enough punishment. I passed this on to the director who was also very touched. She later told me that this policy was changed after it was brought to the attention of the upper management, who agreed with John.

This generous gesture from my son, the “tough” guy, touched my heart. What a wonderful thing he had done. This is how he spent his last Valentine’s Day.

After his death, I did what every mother does: agonize over what went so terribly wrong. I was drawn to two things: his early birth trauma, and how sound and vibration worked so well. I realized that the sounds babies are most familiar with are heartbeats, intrauterine sounds, and the mother’s voice. I remembered how music was the ONLY thing that would stop John’s screaming as an infant in the middle of the night. I began researching sound with specific vibrations and a technique called Vibroacoustics several years ago. In my search I met Suzanne Jonas, Ed.D. Together we have developed Baby HeartSongs. Coincidences are really amazing. The year that John was born, Suzanne was doing her doctoral internship in counseling psychology and creative therapies in several units of a general hospital in Springfield MA. One of the units was a NICU where she was placing little tape players in the cribs with intrauterine sounds, heartbeats, and soft lullabies. The staff and parents would watch with amazement as the babies quieted and fell asleep; they progressed more rapidly than the other babies, being sent home sooner. That was the beginning of her path into Musical Medicine, before it was a recognized field. It was no accident we met for this joint project. Baby HeartSongs is the result of decades of research and experience in sound therapies. The benefits from nourishing new babies with carefully selected sounds and music are numerous: higher oxygen saturation levels in the blood, better nutritive sucking, quicker weight gain, fewer indications of distress [crying], and a masking of the sounds in Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

Three separate and highly specialized programs have been compiled for babies: Natural Baby, for babies who have experienced a natural birth; PreMature Baby, for babies who are born prematurely; and Babies with Addictions, for babies who are born with an addiction issue. They are offered as CDs, Uncompressed Downloads, or a HeartSong Pod, [speaker and loaded MP3 player]. They are available at: www.BabyHeartSongs.com Baby HeartSongs is also being offered as trial programs to hospitals as free downloads. If you are connected with a hospital, please send me an email explaining your interest. I will send you the information for the free downloads. Our goal is for every baby to be nurtured with these programs; they are our future. They deserve the best welcome into this world that we can provide.