Ectopic heartbeat

[brimfullofasha]

Hi,

I'm 25 weeks with my first baby and today at a routine midwife appointment they picked up an irregular (ectopic) heartbeat. She reassured me that this was fairly common and often righted itself before birth but it was pretty scary for me as I could hear the baby's heart skipping a beat.

She's going to listen again next week and then send me for monitoring if she can still hear it but I was wondering if anyone out there had experience of this? Thanks!

DO NOT GOOGLE!!!!!

Absolutely the same - I'm now coming up 35 weeks and he's grown out of it.

95% of babies with it grow out of it before birth. The others just live with it - dp has it and runs ultra marathons. If baby doesn't grow out of it by birth, you'll need to give birth on a hospital ward so that the paediatrician can run a few checks once the baby's born. I'm on course for MLU like I wanted.

I have a history of anxiety, so was given an appointment with the consultant paediatrician - this is all what she told me.

I've been having weekly monitoring, which is actually very reassuring. I'm back on normal schedule now, though (fortnightly at my stage).

Unless they spotted an abnormality at your 20 week scan, there really is nothing to worry about. It's just an irregularity in the signal going from brain to muscle

:)

Thank you Purple that is really helpful. I came on here in the hope that someone could tell me about their experience rather than scaring myself with google! I really hope this doesn't mean I can't give birth on the MLU but all I really want is a healthy baby.

I'm almost hoping the midwife does send me for monitoring next week because like you I think I would find that reassuring.

I just saw the mw every week for a quick listen, nothing scary or dramatic. What i hadn't realised is that my local hospital also has a ML ward - my new plan is to go there to give birth, then transfer to the local MLU for postnatal care