Heart Beat


Are you expecting a Baby?

Will you soon be Granparents?

"It's only natural to worry a little throughout your pregnancy -- after all, this whole baby thing is new, nail-bitingly unpredictable, and you just want so badly for it to go perfectly. And guess what? It usually does. "

 

Anxiety in pregnancy isn’t often talked about.

From the positive test to the moment that you hold your new baby in your arms, pregnancy is expected to be a time of excitement and joy.
Yet for many women it is a time of great worry and anxiety.

"In recent research from the IONA test, at least one in five women report experiencing extreme worry and many mums-to-be admit to regularly losing sleep over concerns for their unborn child." Source

"Most pregnancies result in healthy babies (less than 20 percent end in miscarriage), says Karyn Morse, MD, an ob-gyn at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "Remember also that most miscarriages also happen within the first few weeks of pregnancy, when many women typically don't realize they're expecting and wouldn't know if they did miscarry. They'd just get a normal-looking period," she says. "

 

"Being a parent for many, is one of the most gratifying experiences in that person’s life and especially for the mother who nurtures a life inside her womb for 9 months. Every parent tries to offer the best care for his unborn baby and ensures that it is healthy. One of the most effective instruments for knowing about your unborn baby’s health is a fetal doppler.

Fetal dopplers are the non invasive diagnostic instrument that helps in detecting and measuring the heart beat of the fetus. Listening to the heartbeat of your baby inside your womb is both an emotional and exciting feeling. Fetal dopplers allow you to know about your baby’s heart rate and monitor it so that you can consult with your doctor in case there is any change in the heart rate.

 

The fetal heart begins to beat at approximately the same rate as the mother's, which is typically 80 to 85 bpm. The approximate fetal heart rate for weeks 5 to 9 (assuming a starting rate of 80):

Week 5 starts at 80 and ends at 103 bpm
Week 6 starts at 103 and ends at 126 bpm
Week 7 starts at 126 and ends at 149 bpm
Week 8 starts at 149 and ends at 172 bpm
At week 9 the fetal heartbeat tends to beat within a range of 155 to 195 bpm.

At this point, the fetal heart rate begins to decrease, and generally falls within the range of 120 to 160 bpm by week 12

Listen to a Baby's heart beat

Austria-based physicist, Christian Doppler discovered the Doppler Shift Principle and fetal dopplers work on this principle. Dopplers give you the flexibility of monitoring your child’s heart beat at home or even outside. These are compact, battery operated devices that you can carry with you wherever you go"

"Although there is no prescription required for buying dopplers, you could consult with your doctor and midwife before buying them.

Here are some tips when you are using a fetal doppler –

If a doppler manufacturer claims that the doppler can pick up heartbeats even at 8 or 9 weeks, completely ignore this. It is recommended by medical experts that one must wait until 13 weeks to start monitoring her baby’s heartbeat.

Use a conductive gel generously before using the doppler.
Normal heartbeat is between 140-160 beats per minute.

Fetal dopplers give a peace of mind to parents who want to ensure the safety of their baby in their womb. However, you must consult your doctor before buying and trying dopplers to listen to the heartbeat of your baby. "Tim Scott

Hand-held Dopplers are pocket-sized, battery-operated devices that send out high-frequency ultrasound waves. There's usually a handset, a built-in speaker, and a transducer that's placed against your bump.

The ultrasound waves pass through your skin and tissue, and then bounce back. This bounce is then translated into sound. You need to put gel on your skin to help with the transmission of the waves.

The British Medical Ultrasound Society says that there's no evidence of harm resulting from the use of ultrasound in pregnancy, if used according to the guidelines. Hand-held Dopplers work by using very low power levels,

The FDA suggests The long-term effects of repeatedly exposing a baby to ultrasound waves from these devices are unknown.

Doppler Monitor

"While daily use of a fetal monitor probably does not directly harm the fetus, there has been little research on its effect. According to an article in the Cochrane Review on the use of Doppler monitoring in pregnancy, "evidence does not provide conclusive evidence that the use of routine umbilical artery Doppler ultrasound or combination of umbilical and uterine artery Doppler ultrasound in low-risk or unselected populations benefits either mother or baby."

THE MESSAGE HERE IS, I FEEL, THAT ONE SHOULD NOT USE IT MORE THAN A FEW TIMES A WEEK AND FOR VERY SHORT TIME PERIODS...

As a matter of interest these were found on a chat site

"I'm on hospital bed rest and they listen for babies heartbeat twice a day. The lady in the room next to me gets a monitor attached to her belly to hear baby and she has it on almost day. I'm sure if that were true hospitals wouldn't be doing it as often as they do. Source

"I used a doppler constantly while i was pregnant with my son, hes 11 months old and perfect :) Don't believe the crap you read online, talk to your doctor, I spoke to mine and he said that if they caused issues why would they use them in the hospital? He thought it was kinda funny" Source

Doppler auscultation in adults

The human heart beats approximately 115,000 times per day. Listening to the heart can tell a great deal about a person’s overall health and well-being. You can listen to your heartbeat with a Doppler Having a basic understanding of what a normal heartbeat should sound like may help reassure you and help clarify your doctor’s findings as well.

Count the number of times your heart beats per minute and note any irregularities, extra sounds, or unusual sounds in the heartbeat. Think about how you would describe those sounds. Whooshes, clicks, gallops and plops indicate different heart problems.

It was recently demonstrated that continuous Doppler enables the auscultation of valvular movements and blood flow sounds that are undetected during cardiac examination with a stethoscope in adults. The Doppler auscultation presented a sensitivity of 84% for the detection of aortic regurgitations while classic stethoscope auscultation presented a sensitivity of 58%. Moreover, Doppler auscultation was superior in the detection of impaired ventricular relaxation Since the physics of Doppler auscultation and classic auscultation are different, it has been suggested that both methods could complement each other."

Warning

Any abnormal heart sound should be evaluated by a physician as soon as possible. Additional testing may be needed to determine the cause. source

Specification

1. Ultrasound frequency : 3MHz
2. Acoustic intensity: < 10m W/cm2
3. Peak negative pressure: < 1 Mpa
4. Dimension:104.5mm(L) x 50mm(W) x 70mm(H)
5. Weight: 69.5g(without battery)

Function

a. Acquire the fetal heartbeat signals from fetus, broadcast the fetal heartbeat sound through headphones or with a loudspeaker

A major advantage of being able to record and share the recording is that it can be emailed to a healthcare professional to be checked if there are any concerns about whether or not it is the baby's heart rate and whether or not it is normal. Typically, they work from about 13 weeks.

Can transmit the real-time sound of a fetal heartbeat to your computer folder

 

Angel Sounds Fetal Doppler

Record the beats on your hardrive and send the file to your mum

- 1 x Fetal Doppler (No battery)
- 1 x Headset
- 1 x Line-in Cable
- 1 x English user's manual
Colors pink or pale green sent Randomly
Note: We do not include batteries, according to International law, batteries are not allowed for international air transportation for safety reasons....

 

 
Radiation free headphone option

Anti Radiation earphone

Not being able to find your baby's heartbeat could cause you a lot of worry. And you can't always be sure that it's your baby's heartbeat that you are hearing. It's very easy to pick up the sound of blood flowing through the placenta, or your own vessels, and mistake it for a heartbeat. This may cause you to be falsely reassured. Source