It only takes a few chords to capture Ayla Campbell’s attention. She arrived 16 weeks early, weighing less than two pounds. While staying in MU Health Care’s neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, Ayla received her first visit from a music therapist Emily Pivovarnik.
“Her heart rate would just go down, and her oxygen was going up,” said Angel Campbell, Ayla’s mom. “If someone had told me that this could happen just from singing, I wouldn't have believed it.”
Pivovarnik is a trained music therapist who helps babies eat better, regulate their stress levels and adjust to stimulation.
Pivovarnik is part of a team starting a research project to look at the long-term effects of a specific music therapy intervention called multimodal neurological enhancement, or MNE. This therapy combines music, gentle touch and rocking to help a baby’s brain develop.
About 135 babies will be involved in the research project. After leaving the hospital, they’ll receive neurodevelopment testing

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