Sounds For Silence:news

A Current Affair interview For new parents, helping their baby sleep is the most important issue they face. As ACA reports, mums and dads can now breathe a sigh of relief, with a new product that uses sounds to distract, engage and soothe unsettled infants.

For new mother Jacqueline Louzis, crying twin babies and lack of sleep proved to be an exhausting combination.

“I was desperate! I have twins and I was basically living on four hours sleep each day,” she says. “I was beside myself, I was a walking zombie.”

Like Jacqueline, parents Jamie and Lisa Baker were also struggling to sleep.

“I can see why sleep deprivation is a torture, because when you’re not sleeping, everything else seems bad and you can’t handle daily stuff,” say Jamie and Lisa.

Desperate for answers, the Bakers took baby Emily to their local paediatrician, who came up with an unusual idea.

“He suggested loud noise to distract the baby,” say the couple. “The first night we used the electric toothbrush, it had this low hum, we turned it on and she stopped within seconds.”

The success, however, was short-lived, as the toothbrush burnt out after an hour. So Jamie decided to record their own everyday noises. They claim it was the answer to their dreams. Emily, now two, sleeps like a baby.

“We tried it and it was like a life-switch for us,” says Lisa.

The couple’s paediatrician Dr Harry Zehnwirth says loud, repetitive noises are music to baby’s ears.

“Babies like sounds, they are used to sounds, as they have been surrounded by sounds for the first nine months of their existence in the womb,” he says. “They are used to low pitched sounds, so it is in fact familiar for them to be surrounded by low pitched sounds; it is reassuring and engaging.”

Dr Zehnwirth was so impressed by Lisa and Jamie’s approach that he convinced them to market a CD.

“With the help of audio engineers and audiologists, these sounds are blended, layered and midified, with the emphasis on lower pitched, low frequency sounds,” he says. “These are ordinary sounds such as coffee makers, running water, maternal and foetal heartbeats.”

He even trialled it on 53 blubbering babies.

“Of the 53 babies, 49 responded well, very well,” says Dr Zehnwirth. “In 50 percent of the cases, they responded within 60 seconds to the Sounds of Silence.”

But Helen Shoemark , a music therapist at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, warns parents about putting their faith in so-called sleep-solutions like the CD and suggests something simpler.

“Singing to a baby offers a wonderful connection; it’s a shared experience which is usually quite calming for both mother and baby,” she says. “When you sing, your chest cavity vibrates and in itself it is quite relaxing and massaging.”

Still, Lisa and Jamie reckon the CD is worth a try.

“It’s great to know that such a simple idea that we have been able to put out there is helping people, because it’s stunning to see the way it works,” Lisa says.

Click here to see the full interview.