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Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Anxiety or reasonable worry about heart rate?

5 replies

LittleGwyneth · 10/10/2021 17:41

I will preface this by saying that I'm very anxious and therefore good at finding things to worry about, and I had a missed miscarriage before which I think has made it extra hard to just get on with it.

I went for a scan last week (13+2) after a small amount of brown bleeding. They were amazing, really supportive, looked at the baby for ages, said everything looked healthy and normal, baby was moving, heard the heartbeat, all fine. The doctor was very thorough and looked at everything, and said there was nothing to worry about. They found a cervical ectropion which explained the bleeding, and I went home very relieved.

I later checked the notes from the appointment and noticed that the baby's heart beat was 122. When I was last scanned at 11+3 it was in the higher 160s. So it's still in the normal range (110/120-160 depending on who you listen to) but it has dropped. I'm scared that because she didn't compare the current heart rate to the previous one, she might have not realised that it had dropped since two weeks previous.

The heart rate reading at my 11+3 scan was taken with an internal transvaginal ultrasound whereas the second lower one was done over my abdomen, and I do carry some excess weight across my stomach, so the picture was much less clear that way etc. So I do wonder whether that might have changed the reading at all.

Also, I think from my Googling that it's normal for the heartrate to drop a little over the pregnancy? And I was fractionally less panicked on the second scan so my own heart rate was a little lower.

But even having tried to reassure myself as much as humanly possible, I am still absolutely terrified that this means something is wrong with the baby. We had the NIPT test and it came back as very low risk for chromosomal abnormalities, not sure if that's relevant.

OP posts:
Cantgetausername87 · 11/10/2021 01:31

Please dont worry! The current HR seems great! The thorough doctor wouldnt have missed that - try and relax and enjoy your pregnancy i'm sure everything is going to be fine x

MinaPop · 11/10/2021 08:48

I don't know about early pregnancy tbh, but definitely in later pregnancy the HR changes a lot. Mine is around 120 and then the baby moves and it jumps right up to 150 or so. The heart is tiny so it has to work hard if the baby moves. Maybe it's the same even at the earlier gestation you're at? Sure you could Google it to find out.

TakeYourFinalPosition · 11/10/2021 08:51

I’m 30 weeks and my babies heart rate has been all over the place during pregnancy; and they are absolutely fine. It changes loads.

Try not to stress. It’s hard, but there’s so many little triggers in pregnancy! I wish I’d not spent so long working myself up about things.

shivawn · 11/10/2021 09:50

Mine has varied from 126-160's. The day it was in the 160's he was really active, kicking and rolling loads during the doppler.

LittleGwyneth · 11/10/2021 10:39

Thank you all so much. I called the midwife and she very kindly echoed what you all said.

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