Music & postnatal depression
Margaret Lobo has been running the Otakar Kraus Music Trust for over 15 years, helping children with psychological and physical disabilities. Naturally, her work often involves the parents of children, particularly mothers. In the last year, Margaret has started running music groups for mothers suffering from postnatal depression, with heartening results. Here she talks to Bongo Club about the positive effect that music can have on postnatal depression, its strength as a unifying means of communication and its ability to increase the bond between mother and child.
"There is really en epidemic of postnatal depression," says Margaret as we sit down to talk. "I think a lot of that has to do with financial pressures on families. You have two incomes coming in and then all of a sudden you have one." When it comes to addressing postnatal depression, Margaret emphasises the importance of "intervening at the earliest possible moment".
"When it hits you, it"s a though something has cut right through your whole being," says Margaret of the condition. "The suffering for these women and their husbands and children is terrible. I think a lot depression is to do with expectation and the notion that you've got to be the perfect mother. Postnatal depression is the same everywhere around the world and therefore we are looking at a condition that everybody can have. There will be degrees of it according to the environment and the situation, but the postnatal depression itself is the same."
Margaret describes the postnatal music sessions that she runs as "preventative" in that they strengthen the unity between mother and child, and lessen the likelihood of the bond breaking down and the future consequences that could result. She also encourages expectant mothers to join the music therapy groups she runs to get an idea of what they can do should the issue of postnatal depression arise.
"When you have postnatal depression, or any depression, the listening goes inwards," says Margaret. "You're listening all the time to your thoughts: "I'm not a good mother", "I hate my child", "Why is my child behaving like this" etc. You've got all of that going on inwardly. When you use music, it brings you into the present moment, and for those moments you are alleviating the pressure on the mind."
The first organ to be formed perfectly in an unborn child is the ear, and at eight weeks unborn babies can hear the sound of their mother's voice and the noises that surround them. It's perhaps not so surprising then to find that music can be a particularly effective tool in alleviating postnatal depression. Margaret comments that women suffering from postnatal depression often "want to unite with their child, but their whole hormonal system is upside down." She goes on to emphasise that music "is an ideal intervention for mother and babies. It tunes into the baby's innate musical responsiveness, " says Margaret "and helps mothers to discover and respond to this amazing ability which is inborn in all of us." Margaret uses music to help strengthen the relationship between mother and child in a positive and creative way. Babies are born with this "creative nature" points out Margaret and through music therapy, mothers are shown how to stimulate that creativity and bond through sharing the musical experience.
"If there is something hormonal causing the postnatal depression, you cannot perhaps cure it," says Margaret. "But through the music therapy sessions, the women can begin to open up through the music and hopefully start to talk to others, hold their baby, hold other babies - there's no feeling of isolation, no feeling of class distinction, no feeling of race. There is just this sense of unifying through the qualities of the music. You'll find that some women will break down and cry because it has opened up the heart. And what happens when one woman cries is that all the other women go around and hug them and say "we understand". By having mothers in the group with children that do and don't have disabilities, they begin to understand what other mothers are going through."
"There's a tea break in each session, and the mothers get together and talk," says Margaret. "Women have this wonderful gift for bonding quickly. Men will often sit there and eye each other up, not really talking, but women love talking and they need it so much. What we're really doing in a way is taking over from the extended family. In the UK you don't have enough now of the extended family. In fact you very seldom hear about children talking about grandparents anymore, which is a shame. A lot of people that I know in India have this extended family - it may not always be happy, but they have it! So it's very important that the women in these groups feel that there is something uniting them from within and rebalancing the natural rhythm that flows from one human being to another."
She goes onto explain that one of the therapists she had been working with, brought the need for a postnatal depression group to her attention, having run a similar group in a Surestart centre. The therapist had set up a group of mothers from ethnic backgrounds. "It was amazing," says Margaret "because there was this group of ten women and not one of them spoke English. Some spoke the same language and could converse a little between themselves. They were over in the UK as refugees - some of them had been raped, some of them had seen their families killed in front of them and some of them had lost their husbands. Some are over here and because they don't speak the language, they never go out of the house. The children go to school and learn English and the fathers go out to work and the women are left alone all day. There are many different issues."
"What the therapist found was that by taking a group of drums, she started to play the drums and one woman got up and in her best English she said "we do that in my country". So she joined in and then another woman had the confidence to join in. Before you knew it, you didn't have to have a language - you had one language, the universal language of music. These women then gradually began to talk and let their feelings out. They said that the music session was the one time each week that they got out, and were with other women. The support that they gave to each other was just immense."
Margaret also stresses the importance of addressing postnatal at the earliest possible moment. "If you don't address it at this age, I've seen the results of that unity not coming, and it is devastating," says Margaret of the bond between mother and child. "I have worked a lot with women who have been to a lot of counselling and the ones that have a bad relationship with their mothers find it the hardest. If you can find a way in the beginning of addressing this balance it's very, very important."
Our music therapy sessions are very carefully planned so that you can bring out the best of each person there. The music therapist is very well-trained in how to observe what is needed for each individual person. Our music therapy sessions are much more keyed into the needs of the individuals within the group setting. The most powerful thing is a group, and when you've got a group of people, you can really do a lot together. An individual can do a lot, but unless you have an ability to inter-relate with others - you're isolated."
"With a recent group that we ran, some women didn't speak until the last two weeks and then all of a sudden they began to talk. We had one woman from a local housing estate who lived a pretty tough life, then we had someone from Iran and someone from Iraq. All of a sudden you had this league of nations working together! It was wonderful. You get women opening up and speaking and it just changes everything."
The Otakar Music Trust can help parents who are looking to form a music therapy group for their child/children. If there isn't a group in your area, and you are looking for advice on how to form a music therapy group for your children, you can contact Margaret Lobo through the Otakar Kraus Music Trust.
Otakar Kraus Music Trust
Youth Music
Youth Music exists to facilitate and fund high quality and diverse musical experiences for young people up to the age of 18, particularly those living in areas of social and economic need.
