TL;DR • Neuroscience now confirms that the maternal voice has a uniquely organizing effect on the human brain — beginning before birth and persisting into adulthood. • A 2025 paper in the Journal of Neuroscience showed that seven-month-old infants neurally track the maternal voice more strongly than any other voice — independent of acoustic features. • Many adult women carry the absence of that voice as a quiet, unnamed grief. The repair is not to find the mother who didn't sing. The repair is to learn to sing to yourself. |
What the Maternal Voice Does to the Developing Brain
A 2025 paper in the Journal of Neuroscience (Jessen et al.) examined neural tracking of the maternal voice in seven-month-old infants. Using high-density EEG, the researchers found that infants' brains tracked the mother's voice more strongly than other women's voices — and this effect persisted regardless of acoustic similarity. The maternal voice carries a unique signal that the infant brain learns to listen for.
A 2023 study in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (Nguyen et al., «Sing to me, baby») found that infants showed neural tracking and rhythmic body movement to live maternal singing in ways they did not to recorded singing. The live, embodied voice — with all its imperfections — is precisely what the developing brain organizes around.
What Perukua Says About the First Instrument
Perukua has called the voice the first instrument on the planet. In her 2025 Elledgy Magazine interview she said: “A woman’s own voice is her most powerful healing instrument.”
In her 2017 Karavan interview, reflecting on what she most wants to pass forward, she said: “Never betray the voice of your soul, never compromise with your conscience. No comfortable, secure old age is worth dying while still alive — betraying your love and your talents.”
And on the orientation that has structured her practice for almost three decades: “I created a practice where people are entering the body, releasing fear and anxiety, and nourishing the body with their voice, their breath, and their touch.”
“A woman’s own voice is her most powerful healing instrument.” — Perukua, Elledgy Magazine, July 2025 |
The Adult Daughter Who Was Not Sung To
Many women in midlife realize, often without language for it, that they were not sung to as children. The absence is not dramatic. It is structural. A whole register of self-soothing was not modeled. The voice that should have been a safety signal in early life was, often, instead a corrective or worried voice.
This is one of the quietest forms of inheritance — and one of the most repairable. The mechanism of repair is not finding the mother who didn't sing. The mechanism is becoming, slowly, the voice you needed.
A Lullaby-for-Yourself Practice
In a private moment, before bed or upon waking, hum quietly to yourself. Any tune. No words are needed. Hum the way a mother would hum to a child who is afraid in the night — not to perform, but to comfort. Continue for three to five minutes.
At first, this can feel strange. Many women report tears in the first weeks. This is the body recognizing a register of self-care it was waiting for. After several weeks, the practice settles. The nervous system learns that this voice is the safety signal. The lullaby that was missing is, slowly, given.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can adults benefit from lullabies? Yes. Adult lullaby practice — humming or quiet singing to oneself, especially at bedtime — activates the same vagal and parasympathetic pathways that maternal singing activates in infants. It is one of the gentlest forms of nervous-system self-care. What if my mother didn't sing to me? Many women carry that absence. The repair is not to find the mother who didn't sing — it is to learn to sing to yourself. The nervous system is reorganizable in adulthood; the safety signal can be built. Do I need to sing in tune? No. The benefit is in the vibration and the act, not the musical quality. Humming works as well as singing for almost all purposes. |
In Closing
The first instrument was the human voice. The first medicine was the maternal voice. Many adult women carry the quiet absence of that voice — and most of them can, with very little instruction, begin to give it to themselves. It costs nothing, takes minutes, and changes everything.
References & Quote Sources
1 | Jessen et al. Neural Tracking of the Maternal Voice in the Infant Brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 2025. |
2 | Nguyen T. et al. Sing to me, baby: Infants show neural tracking and rhythmic movements to live and dynamic maternal singing. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2023. |
3 | Wulff V. et al. RCT on maternal singing and postnatal anxiety, n=120, 2021. |
4 | Wang et al. Music therapy for depression: A narrative review. Brain-X (Wiley), 2024. |
5 | Perukua interview, Elledgy Magazine, July 2025. |
6 | Perukua interview, Karavan.ua, 2017. |
7 | Perukua interview, LA Weekly. |
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