Music for moms: KU Wichita researcher studying music intervention in expectant and new moms
With a longtime interest in women's health, Michelle Redmond, Ph.D., M.S., is examining how stress can impact women, especially African American women, and how stress can affect birth outcomes.

A KU School of Medicine-Wichita researcher is studying whether music can soothe everyday and situational stressors, particularly those brought on by discrimination, among pregnant and postpartum women.
Already more than 30 women have been surveyed as part of what will be a study of 50 women in the greater Wichita area.
The data will help principal investigator Michelle L. Redmond, Ph.D., M.S., prepare grant proposals for further studies about the role of music as an intervention tool for pregnant and postpartum women. The current study is funded by an internal grant from Frontiers Clinical and Translational Science Institute at KU.
Redmond, an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at KU School of Medicine-Wichita, has had a longtime interest in women’s health, particularly looking at adverse health outcomes and how to improve them. As part of her research, she has been examining how stress can impact women, especially African American women, and how stress, including discrimination stress, can cause negative birth outcomes.
Redmond is collaborating with Rebecca Lepping, Ph.D., an assistant professor of neurology with KU’s Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center, and Deanna Hanson-Abromeit, Ph.D., MT-BC, an associate professor of music therapy and music education with KU, to study whether music can help relieve stress during pregnancy. The three met at a Kansas Birth Equity Network meeting and began looking for ways they could collaborate.
There’s a growing body of research that indicates music has therapeutic effects, including releasing endorphins — hormones that help relieve pain, reduce stress and improve one’s sense of well-being, according to medical sites.
“Currently there’s not a lot of literature out there around interventions during pregnancy, particularly for African American women,” Redmond said. “We’re interested in African American women because of the high infant mortality and maternal morbidity and mortality rates.”
A study of maternal death rates for 1999-2019, published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed Kansas has consistently high maternal mortality rates among African American mothers, especially when compared to rates among all other women in the state. Also, the Kansas rates for deaths among Black women due to pregnancy-related causes were twice as high as those in the surrounding states of Missouri, Nebraska and Colorado, according to published reports.
Past studies have also shown stress can increase the risk of adverse health outcomes for babies, such as low birth weight, Redmond said.
About half of the women in Redmond’s current study will be African American women, while the remaining half will include Hispanic and white women.
“We have a good variety of participants,” said research assistant Gabriela Aguilar, who along with research assistant McKenzie Boyd is helping Redmond interview the study’s participants.
In the interviews, women are asked open-ended questions about whether they experience discrimination (i.e. what forms and frequency), what coping strategies they use for relieving stress and tension and how those are working, and if they were to use music to reduce everyday stressors, how would they want that intervention delivered (i.e. through a music app or self-generated playlists or already-curated playlists.).
Redmond expects to have study results by July and will use those results to request further funding from other grant sources.
Profile photos, from top: Michelle Redmond, Ph.D., M.S.; Rebecca Lepping, Ph.D.; and Deanna Hanson-Abromeit, Ph.D., MT-BC.
Interested in participating?
The study is seeking women who are pregnant or have a child under the age of 2. See if you qualify.