Seeing but not hearing heartbeat on ultrasound?

[Witch91]

Hello all

I went for a private scan yesterday, and all looked good, we saw the heartbeat and it was amazing to see the little bean in there.

However, I had built up in my head the fact that at 8 weeks if you hear a heartbeat, chance of a miscarriage goes down to about 3%, and had been thinking I would tell a few more people on this basis. I woke up in the middle of the night freaking out about the fact that although we saw the heartbeat, we didn't hear it.

Also, I would have been 8+1 based on when I thought my last LMP was (although this was a bit of a guess!), but they dated at 7+4.

I guess my question is this: does 3/4 days between 7+4 and 8+1 make a big difference to the % chance of MC, and is there a difference between seeing and hearing a heartbeat on the U/S? (I probably should have asked the sonographer if we could hear it, but I was a bit overwhelmed by it all tbh!)

PS please be kind this is my first pregnancy and my first new post!

Hi OP, the only difference between seeing and hearing the heartbeat on an ultrasound is the position of the volume knob - don't worry.

I wouldn't worry about the dates/ages either. At these early stages the baby is so impossibly tiny that a tiny shift in position can make the measurements slightly off. I measured off by a similar amount at around the same time and baby is asleep in my lap right now.

The important thing is there is a heartbeat, you don't hear it because the somographer had the volume turned down on her machine. Telling people is a matter of preference, people find out "early" with me due to HG and I can't hide it.

It's totally normal not to hear the heartbeat at any of your scans (in my experience anyway - and I've had 7 this pregnancy alone - unless they're looking at the umbilical blood flow). SEEING a heartbeat means exactly the same thing though, trust the experts if they were happy with things! It just looks like a fast little flicker at this stage anyway. You will HEAR the heartbeat at your midwife appointments later on, when they use a fetal doppler probe, but even then they often won't listen till around 16-18 weeks as it can still be very difficult to find, even if baby is absolutely fine, so causes a lot of unnecessary anxiety. Try not to worry!

Exactly what the others said - the sonographer just didn't have the sound turned on/up. And please don't worry about the date discrepancies - I had several early scans and the date changed with every one - they are so tiny. I ended up with a date a week later at my 12 week scan compared to my 7 week one. I totally understand the feeling of worry about it all though - I worried throughout my pregnancies.

Try not to worry and just take one day at a time.

8 weeks is quite early to tell everyone though, would you be better waiting until your 12 week scan? That's very reassuring as you see what looks like an actual baby and they can check a lot more then.

Op- I work in ultrasound. Seeing and "hearing" the heartbeat are both done with ultrasound, but in different ways. The "hearing" that your midwife does with a Doppler on your tummy is much less accurate than actually seeing a pulsing heart with full ultrasound.

We don't routinely put the "hearing" (Doppler) function on when doing antenatal scans, particularly at such early stage. At later scans, when they're looking at the actual structure of the heart and blood vessels, they may do so to check that blood is going in the right direction etc.

At an early scan though- no. Seeing it is actually MORE reassuring than just hearing it.

Hope this helps, and congratulations

I had my first scan at 12 weeks and had a moment of panic when I saw the baby but couldn't hear the heartbeat. Then the sonographer said "look, there's the heart" and you could see it fluttering away on screen. I figured they just hadn't turned the sound on because she clearly wasn't concerned and you could see it moving. As others have said, if the heartbeat is there is there. Don't worry just because they were looking for it, not listening for it!

Thank you everyone for your quick replies - you've definitely put my mind at rest this morning! I know it was a bit silly, but it felt very concerning at 2:30 this morning!!

sianihedgehog your response made me well up!

tinklypoo I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I hope the rest of this pregnancy goes well, some good advice and I am trying to take it day by day but it's hard not to think ahead!

Aye I know 8 weeks is a bit early, but I have not been my best at work, and getting to 3 and feeling exhausted. If I keep going home early it doesn't set a good example for my small team, but feel it wouldn't be so bad if they knew, but equally don't want to tell people too early either. I'll think about it a bit more over the weekend...

Thank you Gnarly (great UN BTW!) great to hear from a professional, and really good to know. I think you always see on TV that people have ultrasounds and instantly hear the heartbeat, it's funny that like so many things it not like that in real life!