Home Doppler machine

[JackJack84]

Has anyone used a home Doppler machine to listen to baby's heartbeat? I wouldn't have considered it but I've been offered one from a friend. Not sure whether it'll cause me more stress!

I used one from 10 weeks for reassurance and it’s the best thing I ever did. Not sure how I would of coped with the anxiety otherwise. As long as you don’t replace it for medical care if you have any concerns, I don’t see why not.

I wouldn't do it. Midwives sometimes struggle to find a baby's heartbeat. You aren't trained and have no idea what you're hearing even if you found a heartbeat like sound there's no guarantee it's actually a heartbeat.

@Thefaceofboe thank you, did you find it easy to pick up the heartbeat?

My mw recommended against it because she had patients who had stillbirths / miscarriages because they trusted it over their intuition / medical advice / reduced removements. Counting kicks / movements and knowing what’s normal for you and your baby & then approaching your mw / labour ward when things change is the best thing you can do.

The general advice from NHS etc is not to use it. There are cases of women using it for reassurance only to find out it wasn’t the baby’s heartbeat they were picking up. You could pick up your heartbeat or some other sound. Also sometimes there might be a heartbeat but it’s hard to find. The other day it took such a long time for the midwife to find the heartbeat and then the baby kept moving and it stopped. Would you know if it was because it was moving or because there was something of concern with the heartbeat? It’s something to consider but obviously up to you. Still go in though with change/lack of movement even if there is a heartbeat.

@SemiFeralDalek @Ozanj thank you, these were the sort of concerns that we're making me think against taking it

Please don’t! I have sadly seen women who were falsely reassured by picking up their own heartbeat with devastating consequences and also women who came in incredibly distressed because they couldn’t find the heartbeat. They shouldn’t be sold to the general public.

I had one and used it up until I could feel baby kicks at 15 weeks. I first found it at 9 weeks.

If you do use one just remember there will be times you can't pick up HB. It happened to me a few times due to positional I think and came back to do it a few hours later and was able to find it again.

It shouldn't be used if you have any concerns (eg reduced movements) and your midwife if GP should be contacted in first instance.

It is supposed to be used as a bonding experience xxxx

I'd be wary of them. I had a lot of anxiety during my pregnancy but decided against getting one for many of the reasons @SemiFeralDalek and @Ozanj mentioned.
I may have completed misremembered this but I thought I read that using a doppler machine too often is not good for the baby. I'm open to correction on that
It would have been nice as a way for me and DH to bond with the baby, especially due to maternity restrictions in the hospital at the time but on balance I didn't feel like it would be good for me or baby

@Gemmaemilyx

I had one and used it up until I could feel baby kicks at 15 weeks. I first found it at 9 weeks.

If you do use one just remember there will be times you can't pick up HB. It happened to me a few times due to positional I think and came back to do it a few hours later and was able to find it again.

It shouldn't be used if you have any concerns (eg reduced movements) and your midwife if GP should be contacted in first instance.

It is supposed to be used as a bonding experience xxxx

Unless you were using a transvaginal monitor it is very unlikely you were picking up anything other than your heartbeat before 15 weeks. Even state of the art Abdominal ultrasound machines need you to push very hard to get anything before 20 weeks.

I'd never ever use one and actually think they should be banned for home use. Dopplers are supposed to be used by trained professionals who know what they're listening for.

Most of the time an untrained person will actually pick up the best of their placenta or their own pulse rather than baby's heartbeat.

They can give a false sense of security. You should be mindful and keep a track of your baby's movements, learn what is normal for you and if baby changes/stops this then you contact your midwife and get checked out.

Check out the Kicks Count website for more info. These dopplers really are discouraged, for good reason.

Also not having it made me go into the hospital when I did have concerns. The midwives were more than happy to check me out, even when it may have been my anxiety looking for reassurance. One midwife said "so what if we just check you out to calm your anxiety, we are here to look after mum as well as baby and if an extra will help you feel relaxed than that's fine"

@Gemmaemilyx

I had one and used it up until I could feel baby kicks at 15 weeks. I first found it at 9 weeks.

If you do use one just remember there will be times you can't pick up HB. It happened to me a few times due to positional I think and came back to do it a few hours later and was able to find it again.

It shouldn't be used if you have any concerns (eg reduced movements) and your midwife if GP should be contacted in first instance.

It is supposed to be used as a bonding experience xxxx

Yeah at 9 weeks you'll have been hearing your own heartbeat. Even midwives don't routinely look for the heartbeat at appointments until around 16 weeks (some trusts are even later, but mine did 16) because they're too hard to pick up on their professional grade equipment.

Don’t do it, I remember at my first midwife appointment where there listened for the heart beat (which I think was around 16 weeks?) the midwife could identify 3 different heartbeat sounds.

1 was me,
2 was bloody whooshing through the placenta
3 was the baby (and the hardest to find)

I think especially before the third trimester there’s no way an untrained person would really be able to find and distinguish between them. So you could have it and listen to something but fairly unlikely to be your baby’s heartbeat.

How would you know you aren't picking up the placenta or your heartbeat instead of the baby's?

I had a lot of monitoring during my pregnancy and each health professional had to check one or all of them.

Btw to check baby's movements the current advice in the UK is not to count kicks. Your midwife should give you more info on what you are looking for, but in general you need to learn your own individual baby's movements.

I’d also wonder about the impact of heating fetal tissue, the Doppler is ultrasound and can cause increased heat, having a Doppler used occasionally or an ultrasound scan is quite a different level of risk to one being used everyday.

Not that you were saying you would use it daily! But I’m sure there are people who do.

Don't do it, if you're not trained how to use it you don't know how to pick up the heartbeat accurately and you also don't know what you're listening for. So if you had worries then checked and heard it you might think all is fine and not seek advice - but a trained midwife would hear the difference in how a heartbeat sounds (speed, whooshing, pauses etc)

@PinkPlantCase

I’d also wonder about the impact of heating fetal tissue, the Doppler is ultrasound and can cause increased heat, having a Doppler used occasionally or an ultrasound scan is quite a different level of risk to one being used everyday.

Not that you were saying you would use it daily! But I’m sure there are people who do.

Stop scaremongering. Many, many UK women need daily (or close to it) ultrasounds from 16 weeks. And many wealthy women pay for it privately too - local private clinics offer pregnancy contracts for 000s to guarantee a scan every other day; and dopplers everyday from viability. The only reason it’s not offered routinely on the NHS is because of cost.

Picking up your own heartbeat is a nonsensical argument against having a Doppler machine. The baby's heart rate is nearly twice that of a normal person. If you picked up a HR of 80 you need immediate advice. You can also get used to what the baby's HR is like and where to find it. An intelligent person is just as capable as a midwife of using the machine sensibly. I had a disaster birth because of internal bleeding and my baby's heart rate was falling The midwife ignored the pain I was in (phone call) and by the time I was seen my baby had brain damage and a minimal heartbeat. If I had a Doppler I could have checked and insisted on being seen instead of staying at home. I had one in my second pregnancy and used it sensibly and it was reassuring

@tentosix

Picking up your own heartbeat is a nonsensical argument against having a Doppler machine. The baby's heart rate is nearly twice that of a normal person. If you picked up a HR of 80 you need immediate advice. You can also get used to what the baby's HR is like and where to find it. An intelligent person is just as capable as a midwife of using the machine sensibly. I had a disaster birth because of internal bleeding and my baby's heart rate was falling The midwife ignored the pain I was in (phone call) and by the time I was seen my baby had brain damage and a minimal heartbeat. If I had a Doppler I could have checked and insisted on being seen instead of staying at home. I had one in my second pregnancy and used it sensibly and it was reassuring

Says a random non expert on t'internet.

Meanwhile, the actual experts say different www.kickscount.org.uk/why-we-want-home-doppler-sales-to-be-regulated

@tentosix

Picking up your own heartbeat is a nonsensical argument against having a Doppler machine. The baby's heart rate is nearly twice that of a normal person. If you picked up a HR of 80 you need immediate advice. You can also get used to what the baby's HR is like and where to find it. An intelligent person is just as capable as a midwife of using the machine sensibly. I had a disaster birth because of internal bleeding and my baby's heart rate was falling The midwife ignored the pain I was in (phone call) and by the time I was seen my baby had brain damage and a minimal heartbeat. If I had a Doppler I could have checked and insisted on being seen instead of staying at home. I had one in my second pregnancy and used it sensibly and it was reassuring

My resting HR during pregnancy was between 80-130. My baby’s was 120-130. Even the mw couldn’t always tell so I definitely wouldn’t have been able to. I’m sorry for your experience but that was solely due to failure of the midwives who were supposed to care for you; there was nothing you could have done to prevent that. Midwives don’t even accept / take self-dopplars seriously. Even private ones done by a registered ultrasound technicition get retested when there are problems.

@redheadonatractor I'm not a random on e internet. I am a trained nurse who did 3 months obstetric training and it was very easy to pick up the correct Heartbeat. I am also the mother of a brain damaged baby caused by midwifery negligence. I think that makes me not so random. The midwifery provision in this country is very poor and I learned the hard way not to trust midwives. It is not difficult to use a Doppler and of course it should be used as a wider part of screening.

Of course some women will not use them properly and rely on inadequate evidence, but that shouldn't deter a reasonable mother looking for reassurance, because you can't rely on good midwifery services.

When baby was in distress I could tell due to reduced movements and was taken seriously because I had an app (where I measured movements at the same time each day) that produced analytics. The mw could see something was wrong and put me on continous monitoring to check and yes baby’s heart rate was failing. If I had tried to use doppler results I had taken myself with a £30 machine I’m sure I would have dismissed as the crazy mum until I had a stillbirth.

@Ozanj Most women do not have a resting hr of 130. Your experience is your experience. It doesn't negate other people's experience. I used one in my second pregnancy and it was enormously reassuring. My HR was 70-80 and Dd2 was around 140-150. So for me it was a positive experience

Movement measurements and all other indicators of a healthy pregnancy should of course be taking as part of the bigger picture.

I think all this negativity around home Doppler is an insult to the common sense of most women.