Pregnancy and Voice - for everyone, but especially actresses and singers - please read and help me and my dissertation

[waitinggirl]

hello all!

now, this may all sound very hippyish, but please bear with me. and apologies for such a long post...

i am 16 weeks with my first baby and have discovered MN, which is scarily addictive. it is now threatening to take over my life and ruin the final 12,000 words of my MA dissertation which I am supposed to be writing over the next 9 weeks.

i am an actress who is retraining to be a voicecoach/teacher and i am doing an MA in Voice Studies. i have now changed my dissertation topic to pregnancy and the voice (this way i can combine surfing MN and count it as work!)

i would like any information people may have about any changes they hav noticed to their voices during pregnancy (and for those of you who have had children already, if there were any changes post birth. for exmaple, a friend of mine who is a singer told me she lost the upper ranges of her singing voice for a few months after childbirth). it may be hard for people who aren't used to monitoring their voices, but any changes will be really useful for me.

things i am looking at: how was your breathing affected? did nausea affect your breathing/speaking/singing? did you lose your voice either during pregnancy or after childbirth? did your voice change pitch/become richer/thinner/lose/gain power? do any of you consciously sing/hum to your unborn babies? do you feel that is a way to connect to them? do you sing to your children now?

re: childbirth - i cannot imagine what childbirth is going to be like, but i imagine it is a pretty vocal time and how important vocalising must be in pushing the baby out. were your dps disturbed/distressed/frightened by the noises you made? (no one's got a recording they wouldn't mind me analysing, have they?)

also, i went to my first pregnancy yoga class last week - it was fab, but as someone who uses their voice a lot, i was frustrated at the lack of vocalising - would anybody else welcome a pregnancy voice class?

if more was known about the potential of resonance and the vibrations in the human voice as a means to connect with their unborn child, would people want to go to a pregnancy voiceclass (which would combine yoga style exercises as well as some voicework)?

hopefully i will get some responses and will be able to make a start at the dissertation -once i've gathered some information, i might like to contact people personally by email/phone, but that is way in the future.

absolutely any responses/ideas very gratefully received
thanks
waitinggirl

I'm a viola player really, also violin, a bit of piano, but mainly now sing in two choirs. (and play in orchestras, and do chamber music........ you know what its like...) Ds is now 3.4. During pregnancy, very early on, I got quite breathless - clearly nothing to do with the size of bump etc. Went to accupunturist, who managed to 'clear the blockage' which enabled me to breathe properly - it was amazing, and I try to be reasonable about these things. I could go in, unable to breathe apart from the top part of my lungs -ie breathless just going from the car to the surgery, get treatment and find that when I left absolutely no problem.

Ds was born in April. In late November before that I did a performance of Christmas Oratorio when I was singing (small, chamber choir). When I was singing, or when there was a significant amount of orchestral volume, he was still. If there wasn't much volume, he kicked furiously, as if to get me to start up again.

I was singing in concerts up to three weeks before he arrived. At this stage I could only do 1/2 a concert as I didn't think that I could do a 40mins stand at that stage. Mostly, breathing wasn't too bad, but for some reason, long notes at the end of phrases were the worst, I think that 3 breaths was the most I took on a single note - by this stage I felt as though I needed to breathe for two though.

I felt as though the singing probably helped with pushing - except ds got stuck so I ended up with a ecx anyway. At least the consultant came and told me that I'd been pushing right and ds just got stuck completely.

I think that my vibrato has improved post ds, whether that is due to the pregnancy or maturity, I don't know. My range hasn't changed significantly - if anything, its gone up possibly a tone - but it has been going upwards generally for some time.

Ds has always liked music. Unfortunately he hasn't seemed to have quite got the hang of singing in tune, but we do seem to be getting a bit closer - and he loves singing. He has also requested a violin which we're having fun with.

bumping before i go on holiday. thank you all for your help and information.

i'm sure i shouldn't do this, but i'm too stingy to pay £5 so someone can email me directly on MN. if you would be happy to talk further about this stuff, please email me on [email protected].

silvermum - i couldn't email you via MN, so maybe this will work?

thanks again

Forgot to mention that my Mum sang to me in utero and both Mum and Dad sang to me as part of the bedtime ritual(rather than read stories) until I was about 6 or 7!
Oh and Mum tells a story about going to see the opening night of My Fair Lady in Manchester when she was 7 months pg with me and being kicked in time to the music all through the 1st half ... apparently I stopped during the interval when she was in the bar (having a brandy ) ...and started up again with the band and all through the second half too!

You're perfectly willing to get MN to provide you with research, though. For free.

pretty candles - ouch! have i somehow betrayed the spirit of MN? i thought we were all asking each other for advice/stories/recommendations all the time.

point taken, i suppose, but also everyone who wants to contact me, would also have to pay the £5 (as far as i am aware), so i also didn't want to put people to that trouble.

apologies to anyone who things i am being cheeky - i thank you all for your help

back in a week and will attempt to contact those i can

I feel there is a difference between "Help, I'm in distress" and "Help, I need to network, contact me directly".

And, yes, I think we should pay the £5/year (note to self to check sub is up-to-date!). Though now that MN is so successful, carrying advertising etc, I suppose the users' financial support is not as critical as it was a few years ago.