Does White Noise Affect Newborns?

What Is White Noise?

• White noise is a mixture of many different tonal frequencies that create a constant background noise. The sounds may be generated by a white noise generator or by a fan. The sound of running water can also be considered white noise since moving water creates a wide range of tones.

How Is White Noise Used?

• Many parents use white noise to soothe fussy or colicky babies. The AAP suggests that the sound reminds the infant of the sounds she heard in the womb. Dr. William Sears suggests on the Ask Dr. Sears website that after the newborn is asleep, white noise can help mask normal sounds to prevent the child from awakening.

Dangers of White Noise

• In 2003, Howard Hughes Medical Institute medical student fellow Edward Chang and otolaryngology professor at the University of California at San Francisco Michael Merzenich published a study in the journal "Science" that called the use of white noise into question. The pair raised baby rats in the presence of constant white noise. The sound was loud enough to mask other noises in the environment, but not loud enough to cause damage to the rats' eardrums. The research found that these rats weren̵7;t able to discriminate tones the same as rats raised in a normal environment. The researchers theorized that the rats didn̵7;t learn to discriminate sounds because all they heard was the continuous white noise. It is important to note that, when subsequently exposed to normal sound, the rats learned to recognize a wide range of sounds.

Safety for Newborns

• Chang admits there is a difference between the study and the use of white noise with newborns. Parents generally don̵7;t allow newborns to listen to white noise all the time. Instead, most parents use white noise when the infant should be sleeping, not listening. Chang counsels that normal exposure to white noise is safe for little ones. He encourages parents to talk to babies when they are awake to make up for any hearing and comprehension deficit.