London, Oct 7 (IANS) Listening to Brahms’ Lullaby, Beethoven and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star could reduce pregnancy stress, a recent study suggests.Experts from Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan split pregnant women into two groups, 116 given music CDs and 120 receiving normal pregnancy care and acting as controls.

The study has appeared in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

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

One CD featured lullabies, a second contained classical music like Beethoven and Debussy, 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.

Women who listened to CDs of lullabies, classical music and sounds of nature felt more relaxed than those who did not, it found, reported the online edition of of Daily Mail.

“The music group showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety and depression after just two weeks, using three established measurement scales,” said Chung-Hey Chen, who led the study.

“In comparison, the control group showed a much smaller reduction in stress, while their anxiety and depression scores showed little or no improvement.”