Often? Really Iwasjustabouttosaythat
If a midwife couldn’t find a heartbeat, the mother would be sent to hospital. It’s a serious situation. It doesn’t ‘happen often’.
So please don’t listen to that misinformation.
However, I own a Doppler and can attempt to give you actual facts that can help form a decision possibly.
I bought an Anawiz one which has been very reliable. I bought it second hand for £20 and when the woman gave it to me she said “Please don’t use it too early, it says from 12 weeks but I couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat until I was 20 weeks.”
Now, I’m not sure if it’s baby position, placenta position, shapes or weights of our bodies but I’ve always managed to get a heartbeat very early at 9-10 weeks. So I went home and after about 5 or so minutes I managed to find the heartbeat.
However. I consider myself lucky because some people struggle.
And there’s other situations as well. A few weeks later at nearly 12 weeks it took me about 10 minutes to find the baby’s heartbeat and the panic I felt during that time was deeply unpleasant.
On the other hand during my last pregnancy it was my Doppler that caused me to realise something was wrong. I was nearly 15 weeks, I’d had my 12 week scan and everything was ‘fine’. But around 14 weeks I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone very badly wrong, so I used to doppler. I could no longer find a heart beat. I tried all day, I booked a private scan and the baby’s HB had stopped a couple of days before. It was horrific. But without that dropper it would have been a further 5 weeks before I had known at the 20 week scan. That would have been worse.
And then there’s the kicks. Really, in my opinion once you feel regular kicks you should discard the doppler all together. If the baby kicked less you should NOT use the doppler to reassure yourself. From experience the baby stops moving first when something is wrong and then heir heart stops beating. If the kicks lessen, a doppler is not your answer, hospital is.
So that’s all my information!