At home fetal Dopplers.

[girlmummy24]

I am 19 weeks pregnant with my second baby girl😁😁💗🥹

I do suffer a little bit with anxiety!! Are dopplers any good or would it just make my anxiety worse?? I have an anterior placenta so it’s at the front so won’t be feeling a lot of kick. I had the same with my first daughter and was in triage a lot..

Dont do it. Stick to appointments.

It will make your anxiety worse. You won’t be able to use it effectively with the anterior placenta and it will make you panic.

They’re a medical device that Ned’s to be used by a trained person. If you can’t find your baby’s heartbeat (through user error), that’s not going to reassure you is it?
don’t do it.

I wouldn't get it if you think it will solve your anxiety. I had one but I just liked listening. If I felt there was something wrong (and I did once), I'd go straight to the hospital.

All it will do is raise your anxiety levels even higher - don’t bother.

I’ve been ripped to shreds on a similar thread before. But I had a very complicated second pregnancy, and I am so glad I had a Doppler at home. I used it every day and I would recommend it to anyone. It was very easy to use, the baby’s heartbeat is very low (close to your pubic bone) and there was no confusion whatsoever with my own heartbeat. I gave mine to a friend afterwards, she also enjoyed it and passed it on to a friend.

On these threads there will be lots of people saying they are only to be used by professionals- but I had to contend with many incompetent midwives in pregnancy, and sadly my experience is far from unique. I was glad I had my own direct access to data.

My baby is now 15 and towering over me 🙂

It's different with an anterior placenta because you might pick up the blood flow from you to baby through the placenta which is your heartbeat.

That wouldn't be such an issue if you werent likely to use the doppler in place of seeking medical review and the chances of doing that are higher if you already acknowledge that you are anxious like the OP has.

So for the OP, the chances that she correctly feels something is off, but puts it down to her anxiety are higher than in someone who isn't overly anxious. The chances that she then uses the doppler, picks up her own heartbeat and thinks it's her baby and that all is well is also increased. Especially as a healthy baby and an anxious mother might have a heart rate in a similar range.

As a midwife I’d say a very bad idea. If you are not feeling movement enough regardless of placenta position you need to be seen so a longer trace of the baby’s heartbeat can be done. A handheld Doppler tells you nothing apart from whether the baby is alive or not at that point. You run the risk of falsely reassuring yourself, not going to hospital and something being missed. I e sadly cared for more than one woman where this has happened and resulted in an intrauterine death.

The baby’s heartbeat isn’t always low. You can also pick up your placenta or a uterine artery pulse low. Yes there should be a difference in rate which hopefully you would notice but that’s not the main issue. Can you as an untrained person pick up accelerations, be happy that there’s no decelerations, be happy that the variability is good and that there’s nothing going on like a sinusoidal trace. Because i couldn’t do that with a handheld Doppler.

so fair enough if you don’t have any concerns about movement, etc but the OP seems to suggest she’s considering using it if she’s worried about not feeling movement.

I had one following multiple miscarriages and used throughout my twins pregnancy. That being said I know what I’m listening for and a determine what is or isn’t a babies heartbeat. To the point at midwife appointments I’d have to find them for her!

I had one and loved it.

But, and it's a big big but...

I had it because I was struggling with the concept of pregnancy and to assist with bonding, not for reassurance.

If I was wanting reassurance I 100% wouldn't get a doppler. Midwives don't always find the baby, so you might struggle at times as well. Though TBF, I used them from around 12 weeks when it was tougher. I found out where baby liked to hang out it and ended up helping my midwife find her at my 16w appointment as she couldn't find her.

Though contrary to what some people say, I never found it hard to differentiate the different sounds - my pulse, baby and placenta. Once your know how they sound, that bit was easy enough

There were times though when I couldn't find baby for a day or so - I didn't panic, just tried again later and sometimes I found her, sometimes I didn't.

If you can fail to find baby, shrug, go out for dinner, forget about it and try the next day without worrying, crack on. If you'd spend the next 2 hours in years and wildly googling and wondering whether to phone the hospital, then don't.

Ps: that's not to mean you should ignore something odd that really doesn't seem right, but they'd a difference between well thought out concerns and anxiety.

I had no issues with using it with an anterior placenta btw. It was slightly harder, but not much.

My husband has got recordings somewhere of both my children's heartbeats in the womb, which is kind of cool. I also let my mum have a listen, so she could hear her granddaughters heart beating.

But I still feel it's a bad idea here as it can't and shouldn't be for reassurance.

Hey!
thank you so much for all your comments and feedback about the Doppler. Although some of them are good feedback I feel like I would drive myself absolutely crazy if I couldn’t find her heart beat🥴 and would think the worst case scenario😣 so I think I might just do what most of you suggest and just stick to appointments, or ring up if I think something could be wrong.

19 weeks I think is still quite a normal time to not feel the baby move?

I remember being told that 20-22 weeks is about average.

I was told the same!! I thought being pregnant with my second baby would calm my anxiety a little bit but nope it’s still there lingering 🤣

i sometimes think I might have felt a kick but I can’t be certain . Fingers crossed she starts kicking soon