Summary
Background
Pregnancy involves anatomical, physiological, and metabolic changes in a woman's body.
However, the effects of these changes on the voice remains unclear, particularly regarding
the clinical characteristics.
Objectives
We aimed to evaluate changes in vocal and speech acoustic measures and the relationship
between them and clinical aspects in women during pregnancy.
Method
A prospective, longitudinal study was carried out with 41 low risk, adult, pregnant
women, followed for prenatal care. Demographic and anthropometric data as well as
lifestyle habits and health conditions were collected. Voice recordings of sustained
vowels, and automatic and spontaneous speech were held over each trimester and analyzed
by PRAAT®to evaluate acoustic, aerodynamic, and articulatory measures.
Results
There were no changes in fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, and harmony to noise
ratio during pregnancy. Maximum phonation time (MPT), pause rate, and pause duration
reduced at the end of pregnancy. MPT was lower in sedentary pregnant women. The fundamental
frequency peak rate was higher in eutrophic participants and lower in the third trimester
in women with BMI ≥25 kg/m2. Pause rate was higher in pregnant women with BMI ≥25 kg/m2. There was no relationship between sleep quality, reflux, and vocal symptoms and
acoustic and aerodynamic measures.
Conclusions
Differences were shown in MPT and temporal pause measurements during pregnancy. Acoustic
measurements did not change. There was a relationship between acoustic and aerodynamic
measures and clinical variables (BMI, physical activity, and body mass gain).
KEY WORDS
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of VoiceAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
REFERENCES
- Oxford Handbook of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.2nd ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK2008
- Effect of sex hormones on human voice physiology: from childhood to senescence.Hormones. 2021; 20https://doi.org/10.1007/s42000-021-00298-y
- Effect of Pregnancy on the Speaking Voice.J Voice. 2009; 23: 490-493https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2007.11.006
- Pregnancy and voice: Changes during the third trimester.J Voice. 2012; 26: 584-586https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2011.10.004
- Pregnancy and the singing voice: reports from a case study.J Voice. 2012; 26: 431-439https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2010.10.010
- Acoustic and aerodynamic measures of the voice during pregnancy.J Voice. 2015; 29: 53-58https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2014.04.005
- Objective and subjective aspects of voice in pregnancy.J Voice. 2016; 30: 70-73https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2015.02.013
Demirci Ş, Tüzüner A, Küçük Z, et al. The impact of pregnancy on nasal resonance. Kulak burun boğaz ihtisas dergisi : KBB = Journal of ear, nose, and throat. 2016;26:7–11. doi:10.5606/kbbihtisas.2016.43067
- Women's voice pitch lowers after pregnancy.Evol Hum Behav. 2018; 39: 457-463https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.04.002
- Voice changes during pregnancy trimesters in iranian pregnant women.J Voice. 2020; 34: 358-363https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2018.09.016
- Impact of pregnancy on voice: a prospective observational study.Phoniatrics Logopedics Vocol. 2021; (Published online)https://doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2021.1903076
- A cross-sectional study of acoustic and perceptual changes in voice during pregnancy.Current Womens Health Rev. 2021; 17: 1-5https://doi.org/10.2174/1573404817666210315151512
- New guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy: what obstetrician/gynecologists should know.Curr Opin Obstet Gynecol. 2009; 21https://doi.org/10.1097/gco.0b013e328332d24e
- Development and validation of a pregnancy physical activity questionnaire.Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2004; (Published online)https://doi.org/10.1249/01.MSS.0000142303.49306.0D
- Transcultural adaptation of the pregnancy physical activity questionnaire-PPAQ to Portuguese: a tool for evaluation of physical activity in Brazilian pregnant.FIEP Bull. 2009; 79: 318-322
- Cross-cultural adaptation, validation, and cutoff values of the brazilian version of the voice symptom scale - VoiSS.J Voice. 2014; 28: 458-468https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2013.11.009
Boersma P, Weenink D. Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.1.10. retrieved 23 March 2020. Published online 2020: http://www.praat.org/.
- Semi-automatic and automatic tools for generating prosodic descriptors for prosody research.Proceedings of the Tools and Resources for the Analysis of Speech Prosody. 2013; 13: 86-89
- Scripts for the Acoustic Analysis of Speech Data.in: Madureira S Sonoridades: A expressividade na fala, no canto e na declamação /Sonorities: Speech, Singing and Reciting Expressivity. Pontífícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo2016: 164-172
- Methods for studying spontaneous speech.in: Cohn Abigail Cécile Fougeron Cécile Huffman MK The Oxford Handbook of Laboratory Phonology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK2012: 896
- Prosodic analysis: data collection for prosodic analysis of continuous speech and dialectal variation.in: Cohn AA Fougeron C Huffman MK The Oxford Handbook of Laboratory Phonology. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK2012
- Reliability of objective voice measures of normal speaking voices.J Voice. 2013; 27: 170-176https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2012.07.005
Ross, Earnshaw, K, Gold E. A cautionary tale for phonetic analysis: the variability of speech between and within recording sessions. In: Calhoun S; Escudero P; Tabain M; Warren P, eds. Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc; 2019: 3090–3094.
- Acoustic voice variation within and between speakers.J Acoust Soc Am. 2019; 146: 1568-1579https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5125134
- The expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors in the human larynx.J Voice. 2013; 27: 376-380https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2013.01.011
- Breath group analysis for reading and spontaneous speech in healthy adults.Folia Phoniatr Logop. 2010; 62: 297-302https://doi.org/10.1159/000316976
- Patterns of silence: performance structures in sentences production.Cognit Psychol. 1979; 11: 58-81
- Breathing patterns during spontaneous speech.J Speech Hear Res. 1995; 38: 124-144
Kallay J, Mayr U, Redford M. Characterizing the coordenation of speech production and breathing. In: Calhoun S, Escudero P, Tabain M, Warren P, eds. Proceedings of XIX International Conference of Phonetic Sciences.Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.; 2019.
- Prosódia.Parábola Editorial. 2019;
- Do body mass index and fat volume influence vocal quality, phonatory range, and aerodynamics in females?.Codas. 2013; 25: 310-318https://doi.org/10.1590/S2317-17822013000400003
- Body mass index and acoustic voice parameters: is there a relationship.Brazilian J Otorhinolaryngol. 2016; 84: 410-415https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjorl.2017.04.003
- Associations of sex hormones and anthropometry with the speaking voice profile in the adult general population.J Voice. 2018; 32: 261-272https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2017.06.011
- Perceptual, aerodynamic and acoustic evaluation of vocal characteristics in subjects with obesity.J Voice. 2021; 27 (Published online December)https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JVOICE.2021.10.019
- Gastroesophageal reflux disease in pregnancy: a longitudinal study.Trop Gastroenterol. 2014; 35 (Published online): 168-172
- Impact of gastroesophageal reflux disease symptoms on the quality of life in pregnant women.Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2017; 29: 892-896https://doi.org/10.1097/MEG.0000000000000905
- Sinais e sintomas de refluxo laringofaríngeo e sua relação com queixas e qualidade vocal.Codas. 2020; 32https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20202018052
- Quantifying vocal power: Correlation of whole-body anaerobic power to vocal function measures.J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2020; 63https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00110
- Cepstral peak sensitivity: a theoretic analysis and comparison of several implementations.J Voice. 2015; (Published online)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2014.11.005
- Age-related changes in speech and voice: spectral and cepstral measures.J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2020; (Published online)https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_JSLHR-19-00028
- Vocal health assessment by means of Cepstral Peak Prominence Smoothed distribution in continuous speech.in: MeMeA 2018 - 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications, Proceedings. 2018https://doi.org/10.1109/MeMeA.2018.8438655
- Use of spectral/cepstral analyses for differentiating normal from hypofunctional voices in sustained vowel and continuous speech contexts.J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2011; 54: 1525-1537https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0209
Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 01, 2022
Accepted:
April 27,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
This study received financial support from the Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa e Eventos (FIPE) of the Grupo de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação of the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre. Edison Capp is a recipient of a scholarship from CNPq – Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Voice Foundation.
