Just heard my baby's heart beats with this cool iPhone app(((:

[jannaref]

AMAZING! a guy from work told me about this app called "my baby's beat". He said it was using the iPhones microphone to tap into baby's heart beats sounds and amplify them so you can hear it with headphones.
Anyways, I'm doing this boring conference call with the US branch and thinking why not download and check for myself? I was sooo skeptic at first but it really works!!! so exciting . A brilliant idea. going to record it and email to my parents in Holland.

Jus downloaded it but can't find my headphones !

Just sent the link to a colleague! Didn't have an iphone when I was pg.

HeadPhone speakers and microphones work in entirely different ways surely?

I dot suppose you're the developer Op?

This would never work.

Isn't it more likely to pick up your own heart beat?

Ha ha, good one - shameless plug for an app that could never possibly work!

I read about this app a while back on german magazine named "litern" (it's about pregnancy and parenting), downloaded it to my iPad2 and it worked fine from me at week 29...

Whatevs

I've got an ap that translates English into cat...mind you the cat still ignores me, but I hear it coming out in meows so it must work eh?

This sounds like a marketing plug... Also, doubt that this would actually work? You need fairly sophisticated equipment and gel to hear the heartbeat. Aren't you more likely to just hear your own heart?

And finally, don't the NHS discourage use of dopplers at home as you can get it wrong when you're not trained in how to use them -this sounds like it could be even more dodgy...

ok - now you made me laugh with that "dodgy" thing :-)

Any skilled doctor can use a stethoscope to hear baby's heart beat , no gel , no doppler and nothing else is needed...
How do you think doctors heard baby's heart beat 50 years ago?

You can buy at toys-r-us a device (I think for 20£ or 25£) which also use microphone to enhance baby's heart beat, I got this app for 2.49£... sounds good enough to me :-)

Surely if this worked then MWs wouldn't bother with a Doppler, they'd just use their iPhone (if they had one?)

Shame it's £2.50 otherwise I'd have had a go, if only to confirm it's bollocks (not being pg)

An iphone is not a stethoscope though? And it is actually quite difficult to pick up a fetal heartbeat with a stethoscope -that's why they use dopplers now.

The reason it is dodgy is because it can offer false reassurance. If you are worried something is wrong, and use a doppler (or this app) without knowing what you're doing, you may think you're hearing the heartbeat, whereas what you're actually hearing is either placental bloodflow (rushing at about same rate as fetal heartbeat, so can be confused) or your own heartbeat.

or someone elses babys heartbeat which has been pre recorded...

@Methe - the easiest thing to do is to check if it's fake/pre-recorded, that's the first thing I did , I listened to my own heart and then tried putting the iPhone mic on my lower abdomen, looking for my baby's heart beat - totally different rhythms! my baby's beat sounds twice as fast :-)

As a midwife I tell you that you can genuinely hear a baby's heart beat with the empty cardboard from a loo roll.

I have no idea about the app, never heard of it. But if a loo roll works then yes I guess an iphone might...not sure about the technicalities of it.

But yes, official advice would be not to use home listening devices to try and reassure yourselves about baby's wellbeing. If you're worried about baby/movements/etc call your midwife even if you think the hb sounds ok to you.

Julia, everybody's baby's heart beats twice as fast.

I think Julia's saying that when she put it over her own chest it was an adult HR that the app played, and on her abdomen it was faster. Therefore it can't be a prerecorded con.

Oh right. Sorry, Julia.

It is a genuine app but had plenty bad reviews. Works for some though but think you have to be 24plus in which case movements are much more important and therefore not much point to it apart from novelty. I'd rather use the loo roll. Good tip by the way.