Group singing for maternal mental health

This project was implemented by Cluj Cultural Centre in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in partnership with the World Health Organisation and University College London.
The goal of this pilot project was to explore to what extent Music and Motherhood, a clinically effective group singing intervention for new mums in the UK, had to be adapted to meet local needs, thus investigating the feasibility of implementation and its impact on the mental health and well-being of participants in Romania and Denmark.
Group singing for maternal mental health aims to help alleviate depression symptoms, supporting participants in transforming negative emotions and negative self-perception, to experience positive emotions, support cathartic release, gather peer support, and reinforce mother-infant bonding. Mothers attend these sessions together with their babies and get to share experiences and receive support from the group, sing, and engage in simple music-making activities under the facilitation of a music lead.
In Cluj-Napoca, the research project involved two groups. Two singing groups were organised, one for Romanian-speaking mothers and another one for Hungarian-speaking mothers. In total,15 new Romanian and Hungarian-speaking mothers experiencing postpartum depression symptoms participated in a 10-week group singing intervention facilitated by professional singing leaders.
The pilot involved a complex preparation, including a detailed design of the intervention and evaluation protocol; an ethical validation of the research protocol by the Babeș-Bolyai University and the WHO IRB/ethics committees; a process of consultation on the project design with public health experts, artists, psychologists and mothers who have previously experienced PPD; and conversations and cooperation meetings with a number of local stakeholders such as representatives of general physicians, private and public health institutions, psychology and mental health associations, cultural organisations, media, parents’ groups, and other interested parts.
With the aim to test the impact on different contexts, the intervention was piloted also in Denmark and Italy, by local organisations. The results show in all cases positive benefits for the beneficiaries.