Dopplers can't reliably detect a baby's heartbeat until 10-12 weeks. Your doctor may try again on your next visit. An ultrasound may give you better results. A fetal heart rate is between 110 and 160 beats per minute and can vary by five to 25 beats per minute.
Hearing a Fetal Heartbeat
A stethescope or handheld doppler devices may be used to hear the heartbeat beginning around 8 weeks. However, it may take until 10 to 12 weeks or so to be audible.
Place a small amount of gel (Doppler gel only) on the probe at the end of the monitor. Then put the probe on your lower abdomen, near your pubic bone. Angle or tilt the probe, keeping contact between your skin and the probe at all times, until you hear a galloping sound — the fetal heart rate.
Fetal Doppler: A handheld ultrasound device using the Doppler effect to create an audible simulation of the heartbeat via a loudspeaker or earpiece. It's ideal for early detection, when the pregnancy is approximately 9 to 10 weeks along.
There is no evidence that at-home fetal Dopplers are harmful. However, the heat that they generate can pose a risk to the baby, so it is reasonable to assume that overusing them can cause a problem.
For instance, research indicates that between 10% and 20% of people with a medically confirmed pregnancy will end in miscarriage. Meanwhile, the risk of miscarriage after a fetal heartbeat is detected is only around 4%, dropping to 1.5% after 8 weeks and 0.9% by 9 weeks.
Some obstetricians will check for a baby's heart rate with a handheld Doppler as early as 8 weeks. However, not hearing it this early on isn't necessarily cause for alarm (which is why some doctors don't use the fetal Doppler prior to 12 weeks gestation).
A fetal Doppler test normally takes place during your second trimester (weeks 13 to 28 of pregnancy). Some manufacturers of at-home fetal Dopplers say you may be able to hear your baby's heartbeat as early as 8-12 weeks of pregnancy.
Risk of miscarriage by week of pregnancy
According to one study, once a pregnancy gets past 6/7 weeks and has a heartbeat, the risk of having a miscarriage drops to around 10%.
The earliest you can hear a baby's heartbeat is 6 weeks, but you probably won't be able to detect it until about 7 1/2 to 8 weeks. You can hear their heartbeat through a transvaginal ultrasound, an abdominal ultrasound, a doppler, or a stethoscope.
It's safe to use an at-home fetal doppler one to two times per week for a few minutes. Using the doppler one to two times a week is not a lot of time under an ultrasound machine; you and your baby will be perfectly safe. There isn't medical research to suggest that ultrasounds are harmful.
Fetal doppler ultrasound is a common imaging technique in obstetrics to examine the fetal heart and blood vessels, especially important at 32 weeks. Not only is it safe and highly accurate, 32 weeks pregnant doppler ultrasound can also detect abnormalities that are often invisible with ultrasound.
Turn fetal doppler on. Slowly glide probe, rocking from side to side from the pubic bone up to belly button. When heartbeat is detected, you'll hear it or see beats per minute (BPM) on screen. Clean off doppler for next use.
The belief is that a heartbeat slower than 140 beats per minute indicates a male baby, while a faster heartbeat indicates a female baby. There is no evidence that this is true.
A strong fetal heart rate (FHR) is a reassuring sign that the baby is developing well. This will show up as a pulsing motion within the blob of the fetal pole. Expected range for a 7 week baby is 100-120 beats per minute (BPM). At this stage a baby's heartbeat can also be heard via Doppler.
Fetal doppler can pick up a fetus's heartbeat sometime around 10 to 12 weeks of gestation. The heart begins beating at five or six weeks gestation, but you won't be able to hear it on a fetal doppler that early. In early pregnancy, a transvaginal ultrasound is used to detect a heartbeat.
Gestational Age Week 8 & 9 (Fetal Age: 6-7 weeks)
A strong fetal heartbeat should be detectable by ultrasound, with a heartbeat of 140-170 bpm by the 9th week. If a strong heartbeat is not detected at this point, another ultrasound scan may be done to verify the viability of the fetus.
At six weeks, sonographers may be able to see a heartbeat on the monitor (more on this below).
The most significant risk of using a home doppler is that mums may be falsely reassured when they hear a heartbeat, when actually their baby could be in distress. This could lead to life-threatening delays in seeking medical assistance.
Most miscarriages - 8 out of 10 (80 percent) - happen in the first trimester before the 12th week of pregnancy. Miscarriage in the second trimester (between 13 and 19 weeks) happens in 1 to 5 in 100 (1 to 5 percent) pregnancies. Pregnancy loss that happens after 20 weeks is called stillbirth.
Your nausea and vomiting may be worse than ever: Morning sickness peaks around 9 or 10 weeks of pregnancy for many women. That's when levels of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) are highest (morning sickness is thought to be linked to rises in hCG and estrogen).
If a miscarriage happens after the first trimester of pregnancy, it may be the result of things like an underlying health condition in the mother. These late miscarriages may also be caused by an infection around the baby, which leads to the bag of waters breaking before any pain or bleeding.