Expecting: Home Fetal Heart Monitor (Doppler)

Listening to your baby’s heart beat can be one of the most comforting things you can experience.
One of the best purchases we have made during this pregnancy is our home fetal heart monitor. I can’t tell you how many times it has saved us from paranoid trips to the emergency room out of fear that something was wrong with the baby.

From what I understand, it works similar to a sonogram. The machine sends sound waves into your tummy which bounce off of whatever they hit. It measures how long it takes the waves to bounce back and plays the result as sound.

When the heart is beating, the machine detects the pulses and plays them. Early in the pregnancy, it sounds like a little whoosh-shoosh-whoosh sound. If you get the same model we have, it has a small digital display that shows the heart rate in numbers. You’ll find that the baby’s heart rate is substantially higher than yours. My wife’s is usually around 80 and the baby’s is usually between 140 and 150. Occasionally being higher or lower is fine according to my doctor.

We bought the one below from Amazon.com, which came with a tube of gel. I suggest you buy some extra gel as you’ll need it. We bought two extra tubes which looks like it will be enough for the whole pregnancy. We paid around $100 for the monitor with one tube of gel. There are much fancier and expensive ones out there, including some that you can rent. We looked into these thinking they may be more sensitive, but the most you can really hope for is that they can find the heartbeat a week or two earlier. For us, that wasn’t worth spending two or three times more money for the machine.

Hi Bebe Heart Rate Monitor/fetal Monitor w/ 8 Ounce Lotion

One tip I must offer is that most monitors have a hard time detecting the heartbeat until around 14 weeks. We didn’t know this when we bought ours around week 10 because, being a typical guy, I didn’t bother reading the manual. It’s a dual edged sword to buy it that early because it will find the heartbeat sometimes which is really cool and nice. BUT – it won’t find it all of the time. In our case, this would often make us panic that something was wrong with the baby and we’d run do the doctor’s office only to find everything was fine.

After week 14 we could find it pretty much every time, although sometimes we’d have to be patient and search around for a while.

My suggestion while using it is to use a decent amount of gel (there should be a good layer of it between the sensor and skin) and take your time. There is a slight delay between when you place the sensor on the skin and when it gets a clear reading. Keep that in mind when you are moving the sensor around. If you move it around to fast, you may get nothing. In the beginning, you should place the sensor low on the stomach just above the pubic area. I always put it in one place then change the angle of the sensor slowly rather than sliding it all over the place. I picture it like a flashlight: You can hold it in one place and just change the direction it’s pointing to see. You don’t have to swing it all over the place.

If you are having trouble finding the heartbeat, do not despair. You have to remember that the baby does move around. Also, early on, a full stomach can interfere. Try using it with a full bladder and before eating. The good news is that every week past 14, it gets easier to find it quickly and every time. Now, my wife and I will just do a quick check to say hi if the baby hasn’t moved in a while.

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