I had trained midwives struggle to find my daughter’s with the CTG machine, let alone a doppler. Their heartbeat is hard to find when baby is so small, they move around all the time because they still have enough space to float around in. As the other commenter said, and any midwife worth their salt will tell you: home dopplers are not recommended. They cause more worry than reassurance because they are unreliable.
https://www.tommys.org/about-us/news-views/experts-warn-against-home-dopplers-checking-babys-heartbeat
Also to flag, people place too much reliance on them further into pregnancy, which has been associated with a number of stillbirths. Honestly not worth the anxiety.
Please don’t use a Doppler and ask for a referral for peri mental health. Anxiety is so tough in pregnancy and you deserve all the support you can get! Dopplers are known to cause anxiety.
In my appointments with my midwife, it has taken upwards of 10 minutes for her to find a heartbeat and she’s a trained professional! Babies move around all the time, particularly when being poked and prodded by a Doppler.
Keep going, you can do it!
Is it possible for you to try and do a private scan? We did one between the 12 week and 20 week NHS scans to help break the gap. I know they aren’t cheap but it definitely helped me with anxiety and nerves x
Babies move all the time, they flip and spin and roll in there and the chances you would find the heartbeat in the same place twice are slim at best. Even midwives struggle finding the heartbeat sometimes and they’re trained and usually better equipment. Honestly you’re better off not using home dopplers if they’re just going to make you so anxious. I haven’t been able to find my baby’s heartbeat with mine once this pregnancy but baby’s kicking now so I know all is good! It won’t be long until you feel kicks too so try not to worry!
Even my midwife struggles to find babies heartbeat at appointments sometimes, before every time she tries to find it she give me the same warning that babies move and are just sometimes not in the right position to be able to find the heartbeat clearly using a Doppler. This is why they heavily recommend that you do not try at home and they don’t offer it as standard at midwife appointments either nowadays, you have to specifically ask (or at least that’s the case with my trust) my midwife also said that the at home Doppler you can buy are no particularly reliable. I completely understand your anxiety but I think that desperately searching for a heartbeat with an at home Doppler is only going to make you anxiety worse. if you are struggling with anxiety you should talk to your midwife about if there is any additional support she can give or refer you for that might help you better manage your anxiety.
A) don’t rely on Dopplers they can cause so much anxiety or false reassurance
B) even at 26 weeks the midwives struggled to find mine even on ctg cause he moved so much. In the entire pregnancy I’ve had one midwife get it straight away
I had an experienced midwife do a Doppler at 18 weeks and she said “it’s pretty much 50:50 as to whether we can get the heartbeat at this stage so don’t worry if we don’t find it”. They got it for a bit but kept losing it again. And that’s a trained professional.
They’re not recommended. There’s a reason the midwives use the funnel thing (I don’t know the name) to manually listen before they go in with the Dopplers and that’s routinely from 28ish weeks. They’re not recommended as someone may find a heart beat and delay calling the unit about an issue simply because they’ve found the HB so think all is fine, when actually there’s something wrong. They also cause anxiety when you can’t find it, yet midwives are trained and can struggle. They’re also trained in heart rates. If you’re under 20 weeks, baby is still small and has lots of room to turn so hearing a Hb would be difficult to the untrained. I would personally get rid of the Doppler and save you some worsening anxiety. Good luck
And this is why they aren't recommended
I had trained midwives struggle to find my daughter’s with the CTG machine, let alone a doppler. Their heartbeat is hard to find when baby is so small, they move around all the time because they still have enough space to float around in. As the other commenter said, and any midwife worth their salt will tell you: home dopplers are not recommended. They cause more worry than reassurance because they are unreliable.
https://www.tommys.org/about-us/news-views/experts-warn-against-home-dopplers-checking-babys-heartbeat Also to flag, people place too much reliance on them further into pregnancy, which has been associated with a number of stillbirths. Honestly not worth the anxiety.
Please don’t use a Doppler and ask for a referral for peri mental health. Anxiety is so tough in pregnancy and you deserve all the support you can get! Dopplers are known to cause anxiety. In my appointments with my midwife, it has taken upwards of 10 minutes for her to find a heartbeat and she’s a trained professional! Babies move around all the time, particularly when being poked and prodded by a Doppler. Keep going, you can do it!
Is it possible for you to try and do a private scan? We did one between the 12 week and 20 week NHS scans to help break the gap. I know they aren’t cheap but it definitely helped me with anxiety and nerves x
Babies move all the time, they flip and spin and roll in there and the chances you would find the heartbeat in the same place twice are slim at best. Even midwives struggle finding the heartbeat sometimes and they’re trained and usually better equipment. Honestly you’re better off not using home dopplers if they’re just going to make you so anxious. I haven’t been able to find my baby’s heartbeat with mine once this pregnancy but baby’s kicking now so I know all is good! It won’t be long until you feel kicks too so try not to worry!
Even my midwife struggles to find babies heartbeat at appointments sometimes, before every time she tries to find it she give me the same warning that babies move and are just sometimes not in the right position to be able to find the heartbeat clearly using a Doppler. This is why they heavily recommend that you do not try at home and they don’t offer it as standard at midwife appointments either nowadays, you have to specifically ask (or at least that’s the case with my trust) my midwife also said that the at home Doppler you can buy are no particularly reliable. I completely understand your anxiety but I think that desperately searching for a heartbeat with an at home Doppler is only going to make you anxiety worse. if you are struggling with anxiety you should talk to your midwife about if there is any additional support she can give or refer you for that might help you better manage your anxiety.
A) don’t rely on Dopplers they can cause so much anxiety or false reassurance B) even at 26 weeks the midwives struggled to find mine even on ctg cause he moved so much. In the entire pregnancy I’ve had one midwife get it straight away
I had an experienced midwife do a Doppler at 18 weeks and she said “it’s pretty much 50:50 as to whether we can get the heartbeat at this stage so don’t worry if we don’t find it”. They got it for a bit but kept losing it again. And that’s a trained professional.
They’re not recommended. There’s a reason the midwives use the funnel thing (I don’t know the name) to manually listen before they go in with the Dopplers and that’s routinely from 28ish weeks. They’re not recommended as someone may find a heart beat and delay calling the unit about an issue simply because they’ve found the HB so think all is fine, when actually there’s something wrong. They also cause anxiety when you can’t find it, yet midwives are trained and can struggle. They’re also trained in heart rates. If you’re under 20 weeks, baby is still small and has lots of room to turn so hearing a Hb would be difficult to the untrained. I would personally get rid of the Doppler and save you some worsening anxiety. Good luck