Background: There are few studies regarding ways to promote positive feelings among women in labor. Thus, it would be useful to study the effects of marching music and cheerful music on women in the second stage of labor.

Objectives: To examine the effects of marching music and cheerful music on women’s sense of power, self-control, fear of childbirth, and second-stage duration during their second stage of labor.

Materials and methods: Randomization was used to assign 145 pregnant women, both primi-parous (67) and multiparous (78), to the control and experimental groups. The women in the experimental group heard marching songs and cheerful music during their second stage of labor. The levels of their sense of power, self-control, and fear of childbirth were measured within two hours after the women gave birth. Measurement was achieved by using the 100 mm Visual Analogue Scale (100 mm VAS), which had test-retest reliabilities of 0.81-0.98.

Results: Only 141 of the 145 women were involved in the analysis due to the fact that four women did not have a normal delivery. There were no differences found between the two groups for any of the attributes: sense of power, self-control, and fear of childbirth from data measuring with VAS and duration of second stage labor. However reporting by using questionnaires, most women found that listening to the music was helpful and increased their sense of power at a moderate to high level.

Conclusions: Listening to marching music and cheerful music may have little effect on a woman’s sense of power, self-control, fear of childbirth, or second-stage duration. However, the women perceived that there is a benefit to music, and it may be substantial if the music is listened to for a longer period of time than it was in this study.

Key words: childbirth, fear, music therapy, self-control, sense of power