

But if you're not feeling any movement for hours and have any other concerns (like vaginal bleeding or high blood pressure), a call to your doctor is definitely in order. Prince assured us.ĭon't be alarmed if you don't feel that many kicks, though - you may have just caught your baby in the middle of a sleep cycle. “If they’re kicking you ten times or more, your baby is great,' Dr. In most cases, your baby should kick at least ten times within that hour. So you stop and you rest and you lie down, preferably on your left side, and you count the kicks within an hour.' Sometimes you don’t really perceive motion when you yourself are in motion. 'If you don’t feel the baby move, stop what you’re doing and rest. “The best thing for patients who are non-medical is to do fetal kick counts,' the doctor shared. Prince was able to suggest an alternative method for at-home fetal monitoring.and this is even simpler. I never recommend it for my patients.” What you can do instead So unless you’re trained in the fetal positions and where is, you may be listening to your heartbeat. 'You don’t just put it on your body - you have to know the positioning of your baby and where it’s best to listen. 'We’re trained as OB-GYNs to know what a fetal heart rate should sound like and where to actually find it on the body,' Dr.

Prince did offer up a caveat: If you're an OB-GYN yourself, you can use a doppler at home to check up on your baby - but most of us simply don't have the training needed to make sense of a dopplers' reading. Her take on buying one for at-home use? “It’s a totally bad idea,' she shared.ĭr. Tami Prince, an OB-GYN and best-selling author, who gave us a better understanding of what pregnant women need to consider before investing in fetal dopplers. But before you prepare to order one of your own, you may want to hear an OB-GYN's take on the fetal doppler trend. At first glance, fetal dopplers seem pretty great: They can be relatively affordable, readily available on sites like Amazon, and put the ability to check up on your baby right at your fingertips. You can even use it in a dark room as the back-lit screen display makes the FHR result visible without turning the lights on.If you can't get enough of the sweet sound of your baby's heartbeat, you may have considered buying yourself a fetal doppler so you can listen to it from the comfort of your own home.

The device has an LCD screen with a TFT color display, a combination that results in superior picture quality with sharp visuals 24/7. The curve display gives you a snapshot of the BPM across a specific timeframe, while the BPM reading displays the FHR in numerical form. The fetal heartbeat is displayed in two modes - curve display and Beats Per Minute (BPM) reading. Outside the medical setting, Fetalplus is the only FDA-approved fetal doppler I can confidently recommend to women who want to safely check in on their baby between 9 to 12 weeks.įetalplus’ simple build makes it easy to use. Here’s why this is important - most pregnant women want the freedom to check in on the baby throughout their pregnancy, especially when even a faint heartbeat is a meaningful experience for the parents to realize that bond with their baby. The reason is simple - Fetalplus effectively detects fetal heart rate (FHR) as early as 9 weeks (12 weeks tend to be the norm with most fetal dopplers). Also, turn off the device once the baby starts moving.įetalplus owns a well-deserved top spot on my list of best fetal dopplers. If you can’t find the heartbeat within one or two minutes, stop trying.
#Best baby heart doppler how to#
That said, here’s a general overview of how to use a fetal doppler:
#Best baby heart doppler manual#
I recommend reading and following the instructions provided in the manual that you receive with your purchase.
