“Every single person has an improvement to their mood:” how Made With Music support new mothers through music and singing

Made With Music is a charity that provides a comfortable and calm space for families and offers “accessible routes to enjoying and making live music as a family”. Through their community groups and work with the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, they use singing and music to help mothers working towards recovery from postnatal depressioN.

The Mum and Baby group has been running since 2019 – it was initially funded by Leeds’ Arts and Minds Network and has continued to be funded by the Leeds and York Partnership Foundation NHS Trust. Made With Music also pioneered a Family Choir project from 2020 which was funded by Leeds Inspired, intended as a follow on to the mum and baby group to support mums and their wider families.

Made With Music were brought in by the NHS’s Perinatal Service after someone who attended one of their community groups realised there was a place for their approach in the service where she worked. One of the charity leaders describes, “it’s not us that created the project, it was the perinatal mental health service saying they want music to be a part of their offer because studies at the Royal College of Music showed music can help speed up recovery.”  

The Royal College of Music’s Music and Motherhood research described how “post-natal depression is thought to affect 13% of new mothers”. As part of the study, it was found that having an end date to the project was beneficial and so Made with Music and the perinatal team used a similar structure and decided the project would be 10 weeks before starting again with a new group of mums. The 10 week structure matched the perinatal team’s current interventions using art and writing, which happen over a similar period of time. Using their own anecdotal evidence, the charity’s founders keep their structure similar to the community groups they had held prior to working in NHS settings where the group would always focus on both the mother and the baby. 

One of the project’s founders describes, “people had come to us in the past with postnatal depression and reported that their mood had been uplifted because they got to sing as well as their children and not just nursery rhymes”. The perinatal team wanted to focus on mother-baby bonding, so another aspect of the sessions was giving new mums simple and easy to follow instructions throughout to prompt connection like, “you could look your baby in the eyes now” as part of the activities.  

NHS occupational therapists use their own experiences of taking part in the group to encourage new people to join – providing feedback both to leaders of the charity and to potential beneficiaries. A project leader mentions, “It’s been amazing the support we’ve had from the occupational therapists. They genuinely believe it’s increasing the speed of recovery in their patients. And we hope they’re getting some wellbeing benefits too.”  

As well as feedback from the occupational therapists, the mothers who are supported through the singing groups often continue to engage with Made With Music such as by attending their community-based sessions and family-friendly Mini Gigs at the Brudenell Social Club. Leaders of the charity describe meeting mothers attending one of their open access projects: “we saw some of them at the weekend after 18 months and the difference in the way they present themselves, their attitude, the way they are much more confident through lots of different factors of their recovery is really lovely to see”. In every session that Made With Music hold, they record these improvements using questionnaires. The feedback is collected before and after each session “every single person has an improvement to their mood; we’ve not had one person’s gone down yet.”  

Through constant conversation with occupational therapy staff, working together, the charity can reflect on the session’s success and how mothers have benefited. This relationship with NHS staff is one of the biggest takeaway’s Made With Music has had. The strong connection they’ve made is the key to helping the new mothers and their recovery. “It just wouldn’t be working as well if we didn’t have the relationship with the team”, one charity leader explains. Despite being led by mothers, because of this relationship Made With Music learned a lot about post-natal depression. More importantly they learned how the music can help with this condition - “using music to express or change emotions is something that we know happens, but we use it a lot more now in the sessions.”

Having the opportunity to listen to the beneficiaries and the staff has been key to the success of the project. A project leader mentions that “sometimes, especially at the open access projects we run there’s not much time between sessions, so to be able to share the time and space with them has been important.” Through constant conversation with occupational therapy staff, working together, the charity is all able to reflect on the session’s success and particular how mothers have benefited. This relationship with NHS staff is one of the biggest takeaways Made With Music has had. The strong connection they’ve made is the key to helping the new mothers and their recovery. “It just wouldn’t be working as well if we didn’t have the relationship with the team”, one charity leader explains.

Despite being led by mothers, because of this relationship Made With Music learned a lot about post-natal depression. More importantly, they learned how the music can help with this condition - “how to use music to express or change emotions is something that we know happened, but we use it a lot more now in the sessions.” Having the opportunity to listen to the beneficiaries and the staff has been key to the success of the project. A project leader mentions that “sometimes, especially at the open access projects there’s not much time between sessions so to be able to spend the time and space with them has been important.”

Made With Music will continue supporting groups to use music and singing to enhance mental health and wellbeing. Whilst funding for the NHS new mothers’ group and choir does end in 2022, Made With Music charity are exploring opportunities to continue this work. One of the project leaders describes that as the NHS group has been “shown to be beneficial to the patients, we’re hoping that it can be a core support group to the mothers, so even if it’s not us it will continue to help.” Made With Music found that through music they can build relationships, not just with the beneficiaries, but with everybody that is involved in supporting the people who need the help. They have built on relationships meaning that they can use music and singing to empower the “whole family unit,” and believe that “by using music we can create a shared experience that includes everyone.”

For more information on Made With Music visit their website https://www.madewithmusic.co.uk/, or email madewithmusicforyou@gmail.com.

This case study was written with LAHWN story teller, Gareth Dakin. Please contact our project officer to learn about telling stories of your arts and health work.