Pregnancy is that time of any woman’s life that might end up making her squeal with joy. The joys of having that little embryo turn into a fetus inside you, or the joys of that first ultrasound which gives you the first ever picture you’re going to have of your baby.
But did you know what is the one thing that most women say was the best moment of it all? It was the second they heard their child’s heartbeat. That, they claim, is the biggest blessing of them all. To feel that life inside you when you actually get to hear the little heartbeats, thudding away inside you – they claim that is, the biggest joys of them all.
Over the years a number of different devices have been created to make this special moment even better. Look at some of these devices that are used when the doctor wants to let the mother hear her baby’s heart beat for the very first time.
This is perhaps the most common of all medical symbols. The moment you see a stethoscope, you have to yell ‘doctor’ in your head. This machine has been, at some given point or the other, been used on each one of us to hear our heart beats. This trusty old bugger can be used to listen to your baby’s heartbeat when he/she is in the uterus.
Typically, the baby’s heartbeat can be heard from around the 18th to the 20th week. This will, again, depend on fetal and maternal factors – for instance, the location of the placenta, the position of the baby or the weight of the mom.
The unfortunate part is that most medical practitioners and midwives today have lost the skills that their communities once possessed, when it comes to using a normal stethoscope to hear a baby’s heartbeat. This method isn’t used as commonly today. This method, however, was extremely safe for both, mother and child, because it does not involve the use of ultrasound based technology.
This ancient and simple device was built specifically to serve this purpose – to be a fetal listening device. The flatter end of the device has to be placed on the midwife or doctor’s ears and the other end will be placed on the pregnant belly of the mother. This will let the mother and doctor hear the child’s heartbeat from around the 18th week on. This one doesn’t use ultrasound technology.
When the stethoscope married the Pinard horn, the fetoscope was born. It has a rather modern look and feel to it; and is made from plastic and metal; unlike one of its parents – the Pinard Horn – which was made entirely from wood. This one doesn’t use ultrasound, again.
Some practitioners may want to use a fetoscope at every visit, beginning at around 12 weeks. This device takes some serious amounts of skills to deal with. With practice, the doctor or the midwife can be able to tell apart the baby and the placenta. Like a doctor once put it, the sound of the baby’s heartbeat sounds like a watch that has been muffled by placing it under a pillow. Now that sure sounds as easy as hunting for a needle in a haystack.
Fetal Doppler Stethoscope –This device will use ultrasound technology to bounce off sound waves. These will end up appearing to you on a screen, in the form of the baby’s heart beats. 12 weeks into pregnancy will be considered the normal time for one to begin using this device in the hope of hearing heart beats of your little one.
The FDA doesn’t consider the use of this device to be safe.
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