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 had one for both my pregnancies, you just have to learn how to use it correctly and know which is the heartbeat - and not panic if you can't always pick it up straight away. I loved hearing it!

I got one for our 2nd child as he followed 2 miscarriages. I found it reassuring in the early days but rarely used it once I could feel lots of movement. It wasn't easy to use when pregnant with our twins so I relied on the 4 weekly scans I had at hospital. It went kaput early on in the 2nd trimester with this baby (number 6), I didn't bother replacing it and over 30wk with a very active baby now. I don't think I'd bother buying another if we had any more.

They are not recommended.

Firstly because finding a heartbeat doesn't mean everything is fine. Midwives and doctors know what to listen for. The analogy one of the midwives used with us was if someone was passed out on the floor and not moving you wouldn't think they were fine and leave them there just because they had a pulse. There's still a problem. If movements reduce it could indicate an issue even if your baby has a heartbeat.

Secondly as PPs say it can be really hard to find the heartbeat even for a trained midwife so this could be stressful in itself.

I had a still birth and wanted to get a Doppler for my second. My midwife said..

If you can't find a heartbeat at home ..you rush to the hospital where one of 2 scenarios play out

1. Hospital finds a heartbeat..and you've put yourself and baby through pointless stress

1. The worst has happened and having the Doppler wouldn't have prevented that

Also a heartbeat is only reassurance in that moment..it doesnt tell you anything about how baby is developing etc.. hospital found a heartbeat at midnight traced it for 30 mins absolutely steady and strong ..by 9am my boy was gone

So I decided against it

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

The thing is no one knows. There doesn't seem to be a reason any U/S could cause harm, but you should probably err on the side of caution.

You really have no idea what you are listening to, the sound isn't actually the heart beat, it is the reflection of ultrasound and if it is in the right place then that reflection i of the baby's blood cells flowing through the heart.

Early in pregnancy we talk about a 'heart beat' but the heart starts out as two tubes they go through many changes and is only fully formed by about 10 weeks.

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.

It's nearly tice that of the normal adult HR at rest which means being supine for 10 mins resting, not having had a large meal and not be stressed.

A small, pregnant, woman may well have a HR significantly above the 'average'.

An intelligent person is just as capable as a midwife of using the machine sensibly.

This is nonsense, I'm trained to perform echocardiograms, I'm out of practise but I'm fairly sure I could still make accurate readings but I would not have any idea how to use a stand alone Doppler to get a baby's heart beat.

[quote tentosix]@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 [/quote]
Most women with anemia, inherited traits, low blood pressure, and other routine blood disorders do. I had a hr of 130 due to anemia. Considering how common that is for women, and that most women don’t even know their resting HR, it is my experience that is more typical for most women. Especially BAME women. Attitudes like yours are probably why a lot of hospital processes still let women / viable babies die.

@tentosix

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.

I would argue that you would need to be an absolute idiot to rely on a diy doppler for ‘assurance’ rather than pay for one privately or go to your mw.

For all those saying it would've been my own heart beat, it wasn't. Was 160bpm with the usual 'galloping' noise.

I'm an ultrasound tech and her HR was 155-160bpm throughout when I scanned myself too 😃

Here's a pic when I scanned myself abdominally at 8 weeks. Whilst it's not as clear as a vaginal scan I could see a little HB flickering away and heard it on my ultrasound machine. I then could hear it on the Doppler a week later. I understand you can hear your own HB through Dopplers however I know it was not mine.

Xx

I have one. I bought mine at 15 weeks and didn't know what I was hearing but it said it picked up heartbeats. I was loving getting to hear him! The batteries ran out the next day and I didn't replace but at 16wk scan MW asked if I wanted to have a hear. Said yes and she had a nudge around trying to find it. I smiled (could hear what I heard the week before at home) and she quickly corrected me that I was hearing my heartbeat, not ds. Then the next noises I thought could have been my stomach rumble but wrong again, it was baby legs and arms.
I went away with my bump2baby book that appt and mentioned in one of the first chapters is not to use Doppler

When I realised how wrong I'd been picking it up the week before thinking all was ok (which, IT IS but I couldn't know that for sure) I haven't touched it since.
I couldn't forgive myself for trusting a machine that ds is ok
It is great fun though if you want to have a play around. The later you are the easier it is to use (wouldn't recommend before 20wk) and pick up baby rather than yourself but don't put trust in it. Keep active notice of movement and kicks and speak to MW if you're worried

@Gemmaemilyx

For all those saying it would've been my own heart beat, it wasn't. Was 160bpm with the usual 'galloping' noise.

I'm an ultrasound tech and her HR was 155-160bpm throughout when I scanned myself too 😃

Here's a pic when I scanned myself abdominally at 8 weeks. Whilst it's not as clear as a vaginal scan I could see a little HB flickering away and heard it on my ultrasound machine. I then could hear it on the Doppler a week later. I understand you can hear your own HB through Dopplers however I know it was not mine.

Xx

To be fair, that's a massive drip feed

Surely subjecting your baby to ultrasound rays any more than necessary is a hugely bad idea.

And surely if you can't find a heartbeat, it would be too late to do anything to help the baby.

Sounds very much like companies profiting from mothers' anxieties.

@JackJack84 I was told a doppler can't tell the difference between the placenta pulses and the heartbeat

Thank you everyone for your responses. I've decided to decline my friends offer & stick with the medical advice to monitor movements etc.

@Ozanj @PinkPlantCase just to correct it say on the medic site that the ultra sound if used everyday can create lumps and dots on the cell which is not good. They say to use a few minutes a week. Online it is say nothing to use if trained, and can sense wrong reading. I was thinking about purchasing but now I wont.

I wouldn’t as it’s just more stress if you can’t find the babies heartbeat, or (touch wood doesn’t happen) you find your own and think it babies when it’s not.

I’d always leave it to the professionals.

Don't do it op, it's not safe. All these people on this thread saying 'I found the heartbeat' - there is no way for certain to know if it was actually the heartbeat. It's takes years of professional training. All the sounds are so similar.

All these websites saying to never do it should be all you need to know.

Sorry op just read your update. Well done, you've done the right thing.

@Gemmaemilyx

For all those saying it would've been my own heart beat, it wasn't. Was 160bpm with the usual 'galloping' noise.

I'm an ultrasound tech and her HR was 155-160bpm throughout when I scanned myself too 😃

Here's a pic when I scanned myself abdominally at 8 weeks. Whilst it's not as clear as a vaginal scan I could see a little HB flickering away and heard it on my ultrasound machine. I then could hear it on the Doppler a week later. I understand you can hear your own HB through Dopplers however I know it was not mine.

Xx

Massive drip feed, you're well aware that the majority of women in this thread are untrained! As a supposed ultrasound tech you should know better than to be encouraging pregnant women to be scanning themselves with zero knowledge and experience of obstetric ultrasound! I'm an nhs sonographer and would never dream of promoting this kind of thing to people with zero medical experience.

Even if it is the baby's heartbeat, that doesn't mean there is no issue.

If you were to go to the hospital with reduced movements past about 26 weeks, even the midwives wouldn't just use a Doppler to check there is a heartbeat. They would put you on a CTG machine to monitor movement and the heartbeat, that it is is within a healthy range and accelerates and decelerates as it should.

If you reported reduced movements more than once (I think it's generally if you go in twice) they would scan you.

Just hearing a heartbeat doesn't tell the full story.

@KnottedFern as I've posted above I'm not promoting. I've said it is to be used as a bonding experience ☺️ and not to rely on it for any concerns.

I had one for entertainment only, it was before there was advice against them. If you trust yourself not to use them for decision making, you could consider it.

@Ozanj

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 Out of interest, which app were you using to track movements?

I don't think anyone can say for sure that it wouldn't be part of their decision making. We can worry about different things and having heard the baby's heartbeat earlier that day or even earlier that week could give a bit of reassurance that lasts.

I honestly don’t think it would factor into my decision making. I had a very high risk pregnancy with weekly scans and I was very aware that the moment the scan stopped I had no information on the health of the baby beyond its movement. The day I asked for a trace for reduced movement I had had two scans. But you would probably have to be a non-anxious person, for sure.

@GrapefruitTsunami - the count the kicks app.