Dr. Hajime Murooka - Lullaby from the Womb

Dr. Hajime Murooka - Lullaby from the Womb

The first portion of this LP are recordings of heartbeats of a pregnant mother. The latter part of side one are the recordings of the inside of a mother synched with classical music. Side two has just classical music. These sounds have been reported to calm and soothe newborn babies. Due to the not-great (or "good") condition of my copy, additional sounds of crackling vinyl come included with the sounds of the womb and the music. The liner notes explain the concept of this release better than I can:

As Newsweek recently reported: "When a new baby comes home from the hospital his parents quickly discover that the predictable bouts of howling are not always due to hunger, fatigue, colic or a wet diaper. But now, an obstetrician (Dr. Hajime Murooka) has suggested that crying babies may sometimes just be homesick for the familiar prenatal environment of their mothers' wombs."

"I had spent a long time looking for a 'natural' method to put a newborn baby to sleep," Dr. Murooka himself says. "Hospitals have sought to reproduce the conditions of a mother's womb with the incubator. It occurred to me that a recording of the mother's body beat could serve a similarly useful function." And prove this he did. By playing a recording of the steady pulsating of blood rushing through the mother's aorta as it passes by the uterus, together with the smoother, more even sound of the pulsating umbilical cord, Dr. Murooka achieved outstanding success in his tests. Of the 403 sobbing babies who listened to the tape, every single one stopped crying, with 161 dozing off to sleep in an average of 41 seconds.

Dr. Murooka's discovery came after a two-year search for some way to keep premature infants quiet during various examinations. Corroborating other medical evidence, he states that medical experiments prove beyond doubt that a baby does indeed react to loud noises before and after birth. Within the first six months of pregnancy, the auditory organ and the auditory nerve system are fully developed and babies react to such loud noises as rattling dishes. In the hospital maternity wards he would constantly observe newborn babies responding to the sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor, or a loudly slammed door, by stretching their hands spontaneously, even while in a deep sleep. As a result he became very concerned with the effects of irritating noises on the baby's development both in the hospital and in the home.

Bearing in mind that the womb had created an ideal living environment for the unborn baby for nine months, Dr. Murooka sought to duplicate the pacifying sounds the baby heard inside the mother's body.

The recording which he obtained with a tiny 8-mm. microphone was taken near the head of the fetus in a woman eight months pregnant. When the tape was played in the presence of restless, howling infants the results became part of medical history. For the first portion of side one on this recording, Dr. Murooka has compiled material from several 8-mm. microphone tapes.

Additionally, Dr. Murooka was aware of the reactions of adults who are confined to small areas such as an airplane cabin. Light classical music and familiar concert favorites soothed the most irritated, restless passengers particularly during take-off and landing.

As the last two selections on side one indicate, Dr. Murooka developed his thesis one step further by combining the mother's bosy beat with favorite melodies as a means of further calming the newborn baby.

While acknowledging that the mother's body beat is most effective with infants of one month or less, Dr. Murooka's use of light classics is effective in assisting the baby in making the transition from the womb to the outside world. As the baby becomes aware of his new surroundings he also becomes responsive to his environment and his rhythm of life as a human being becomes of great importance. Such familiar music as the Panorama from Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" and Bach's Air on the G String heard on side two offer a listening environment compatible with a sense of well-being and security. The latter, says Dr. Murooka, is the perfect cure for homesickness and is strongly recommended for babies of all ages.

Cool! Did you get all of that?


Tracklisting:

Side 1

MOTHER SOUNDS FOR THE NEWBORN BABY

1. Sound of the Main Artery of the Mother (A) {4:14}

2. Sound of the Main Artery of the Mother (B) {4:46}

3. Sounds of the Main Artery and Veins of the Mother {4:51}

4. Sounds to Relax the Newborn Baby (combination) {4:51}

FROM MOTHER SOUNDS TO RELAXING MUSIC

5. Sounds of the Womb & Intermezzo from "Jewels of the Madonna" (Wolf-Ferrari) {3:30}

6. Sounds of the Womb & Traumerei from "Scenes from Childhood" (Schumann) {4:15}

Side 2

FAMILIAR MUSIC FOR THE BABY'S ENVIRONMENT

1. Meditation from "Thais" (Massenet) {3:51}

2. Air on the G String (Bach) {2:57}

3. Intermezzo from "Cavalleria rusticana" (Mascagni) {3:15}

4. The Swan from "Carnival of the Animals" (Saint-Saens) {2:39}

5. Andante cantabile (Tchaikovsky) {4:18}

6. Panorama from "Sleeping Beauty" (Tchaikovsky) {2:24}