A team at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan has carried out the study and found that pregnant women who listen to soothing music like lullabies or classical are less likely to get stressed about their pregnancy.

“Pregnancy is a unique and stressful period for many expectant mothers and they suffer anxiety and depression because of the long time period involved.

“Our study shows that listening to suitable music provides a simple, cost-effective and non-invasive way of reducing stress anxiety and depression during pregnancy,” team leader Professor Chung-Hey Chen said.

In fact, researchers have based their findings on an analysis of the mindsets of a group of pregnant women.

For their study, the team split the subjects into two groups, with 116 given music CDs and 120 acting as controls.

The women given the music each received four CDs, containing about 30 minutes of music.

One CD features lullabies, a second contained classical music, a third featured nature sounds and a fourth was based on soothing crystal music of Chinese nursery rhymes and songs. The tempo of the music was set at 60 to 80 beats per minute, the same as the human heart rate.

The women were told to listen to at least one disc all the way through every day for two weeks -- the results showed those in the music group were far less stressed or depressed at the end of the study, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported.