How To Use A Foetal Doppler

Follow these easy steps set out below. Very simple and easy to follow, you should have no trouble as long as you have your baby doppler working and follow these steps to use it. There are many sounds that can be heard with a foetal doppler, so you will need to get used to the sound that you are looking for, foetal heartbeat, however it is usually easy to distinguish a heart beat from hiccups (yes, you can hear these!) and of course kicks! Kicks do make noise that you can hear on the foetal heartbeat monitor.

How To Use A Foetal Doppler with a Full Bladder

This is more important if you are trying to use a foetal doppler in the early weeks as it will assist with moving the uterus up out of the pelvic cavity. This is important as you need this movement to get things in the place they need to be for the foetal doppler to work. As an aside, the foetal doppler may not be that effective prior to 8-10 weeks for the foetus as development is not normally sufficient to hear what is going on with your baby doppler at this stage.

How To Use A Foetal Doppler With Gel!

Foetal dopplers need to be used with gel, and when you buy or rent a foetal doppler, this should be provided to you. If not, you will have to get some, but this is relatively easy and can be done online. You will need to place an amount roughly equal to a quarter coin or a twenty pence (or cent) piece on your abdomen. In the early stages put the gel closer to your pubic bone (a general rule of thumb is between 8 and 20 weeks) and if later than 20 weeks, put the gel for your foetal heart doppler closer to your belly button. Place the probe that is attached to your foetal doppler in the gel and then turn it on. Things are ready now!

Get Ready to Hear the Foetal Heart Rate

You should now begin to move the probe slowly in a circular movement from side to side across your abdomen with the foetal doppler turned on. It is very important at this stage to maintain contact between the probe and your abdomen, so if your doppler has an LCD readout for the heart rate or anything else, do not read it at this point. Keep up with your circular movements until you can hear the foetal heart rate. It is really just a matter of finding it! Remember, the foetal heart rate will be very much faster than yours, roughly twice as fast as your resting pulse is likely to be, so don't be surprised if you hear it and don't realise what it is the first time around.

Ultrasound Scan - Foetal Doppler Misinformation

As with a lot of things that we do, there is a lot of talk about hearing the heartbeat of a foetus at 6 weeks, and gushing over it and the merits of a foetal doppler. If someone tells you that they heard their foetus' heart beating on a doppler at this early stage, they are probably mistaken and are referring to an Ultrasound scan. Don't let this sort of talk put any pressure on you or make you feel that you should hear something by a certain stage. It is different for everyone and you need to let things unfold for you in the manner that your body, and your baby's body, determines. Undue stress is not going to help either of you. Be realistic about the use of the baby doppler, unrealistic expectations will be a negative experience.

Low or No Foetal Heart Rate at 8-10 weeks

Do not panic! This happens more often than you might think when foetal dopplers are first being used. It isn't the easiest thing, and you do need to go back and check everything from power supply to the actual machine itself. Furthermore, the date of pregnancy is not an exact science, and you may thing you are further along than you actually are. There is some variation between when one can expect to hear the foetus heart rate through a doppler, and it is usually between 8-10 weeks. Remember that you need to check you have a foetal doppler and not a prenatal listener. These latter devices are much less precise. Also, if you are tall and a larger woman, it may be more difficult for the doppler to read the heart rate of the foetus, and you may need to allow further time for the foetal doppler to register the heartbeat. Note, ultrasound devices that you may have heard the heartbeat on are more often than not much more powerful that a foetal doppler, with frequencies between 5-10 megahertz, instead of the 2-3 most foetal dopplers clock in at. As such, you cannot expect to get the same results and can expect delays in the early stages. However, by 14 weeks everyone should be able to hear the foetal heart rate through the doppler monitor and it might be time to start making calm enquiries. Most of the time not being able to hear the rate of the foetus relates to the device or the manner in which it is being used.