BabySounds Fetal Doppler

The BabySounds fetal Doppler is an extremely well priced and high performing product. The manufacturer recommends it for use from week 12 of pregnancy.

What is good about the BabySounds fetal Doppler?

Unlike baby heart monitors of a comparable price (such as the AngelSounds fetal doppler), the BabySounds fetal Doppler has an LCD display. While an LCD display isn’t a must have for a home use Doppler it is a big benefit. Firstly, this is because a Doppler picks up the sound of the mother’s heartbeat as well as the baby’s, and if you are newly pregnant you may not know how to listen out for the difference (the baby’s heartbeat is faster and often described as “galloping”). An LCD display is a more reliable indication that the sound you have detected is definitely the baby’s heartbeat because it will give the fetal heart rate as being between around 140 and 160. Secondly, knowing the heart rate can also give you an indication of whether you are expecting a boy or a girl (this is a topic we will be covering on the blog soon). There is disagreement as to whether this is an old wive’s tale, but it can be fun to guess the sex of the baby, as long as you don’t take it too seriously!

The BabyMad BabySounds fetal Doppler is very simple to use. It is compact and lightweight compared to similar models, and has an easy grip handle. If your baby is lying in an awkward position, particularly in the earlier stages of pregnancy, it can take a little while to pin point your baby’s heartbeat. This is nothing to worry about, as a midwife can also take some time to detect the heartbeat with premium brand baby heart monitor.

The baby’s heartbeat can be recorded and transferred to your computer or put on a CD so that you can share it with excited relatives or put it away as a lovely keepsake. You may also want to be organised and record the sound of the mother’s heartbeat to use as a white noise CD. This can be extremely helpful after the birth, when you want to soothe your baby or help them drift off to sleep.

Is there anything that isn’t so good about the BabySounds Fetal Doppler?

Depending on the size of your bump and the position the baby is lying in, the LCD screen can end up in a rather awkward position to read. Some customers have got around this issue by reading it in a mirror or asking their partner to read it for them.

Although the sound clarity is good for the price, there is no question that this product is not quite as high quality as the Sonoline B fetal Doppler (which is used by many midwives and medical professionals). However, this product costs a fraction of the price and is excellent value for money.

What do customers think of their purchase?

Here are some extracts from the customer reviews on Amazon for the Babysounds Fetal Doppler:

“ I have found baby’s heartbeat easily every time i have tried! Great sound from headphones and you can even hear the baby’s movements”.

“I have peace of mind everyday when i listen to my baby moving. I’m so happy with it!”

Around 8 out of 10 women will suffer from some degree of pregnancy nausea, and at least half of women will be sick at least once during early pregnancy. For the majority of women, pregnancy sickness will start around this week. Although the phrase “morning sickness” is often used, pregnancy nausea can strike at any time of the day and can range to infrequent to constant, and mild to severe. Mild pregnancy nausea can mean you only suffer from it in certain scenarios, for instance if you get too tired or it can be triggered by specific food smells. Severe pregnancy sickness is called hypermesis gravid arum, and usually needs medical attention. Sufferers can vomit so often that it becomes impossible to keep down food and fluids.

If you are a morning sickness sufferer, you can expect it to last till around week 14 (early in the second trimester). But like all pregnancy symptoms, this can vary greatly between individuals, so you may find it subsides earlier or you could be one of the unfortunate few who are ill for the entire 9 months. Sometimes pregnancy nausea stops in the second trimester only to make an unwelcome reappearance late in the third trimester.

One of the main worries for women who are suffering from severe nausea and finding it difficult to eat is whether this is harmful to their growing baby. However, these concerns are unnecessary. Even if you are eating very little or can only face unhealthy foods your baby will still absorb adequate nutrients from your body. You may want to consider a prenatal supplement to ease your worries but this isn’t an absolute necessity. The only supplement that all pregnant women are recommended to take is folic acid (to prevent neural tube defects in the developing baby), and anyone who has a diet low in iron may want to take an iron supplement to prevent iron deficiencies and possible anaemia. The latter can be diagnosed through a blood test, but an early warning sign is excessive fatigue (beyond what you would expect as part of pregnancy).

A universally effective morning sickness cure does not, sadly, exist. Eating little and often, avoiding big meals or letting yourself get too hungry, will almost certainly ease the nausea but will not cure it altogether. Ginger is considered an effective natural cure and is safe, so you may want to try drinking ginger beer, eating ginger biscuits or trying a supplement. Travel bands, which fit around the wrist and are designed to ease travel sickness by putting pressure on the relevant acupressure point, are also found to ease pregnancy nausea by some women. There is some debate as to whether acupressure is genuine or if it is merely a placebo effect, but if pregnancy sickness is interfering with your every day life then the bands are certainly worth a try.

* Fatigue – Feeling more tired than usual is very common throughout the nine months of pregnancy, but fatigue tends to be at its worst in the first trimester. This is due to changes in progesterone levels. But pregnant women should also be aware that anaemia is more common in pregnancy, and sometimes excessive tiredness may be down to low iron levels (which can be confirmed by a blood test). Taking a liquid iron supplement such as Spatone or a prenatal supplement will help keep your iron levels up.

* Morning sickness – Pregnancy nausea, despite often being referred to as “morning sickness”, can occur at any time of the day and not just first thing in the morning. A few unlucky women will get it as early as 4 weeks pregnant, but after 5 or 6 weeks is more usual. Although the majority of women will experience some morning sickness, a significant minority never get it at all and there is nothing to worry about if you don‘t.

* Frequent urination – Frequent urination in the first trimester can be a side effect of rising HCG levels. Despite the fact that it is often said that this should ease after the first 12 weeks (at least until the baby is big enough to press on the bladder), studies have shown that most pregnant women report frequent toilet trips as a symptom throughout the entire pregnancy,

* Sore or tender breasts – This is a result of hormone changes, and should start to settle before week 12.

* Altered sense of taste – A common early pregnancy symptom is an unpleasant taste in the mouth, often described as being metallic.

* Food craving – When asked to name typical pregnancy symptoms most people would put “cravings” high up on the list, but they are not as common as people think, particularly in the first trimester. Sometimes they can be a sign of a nutrient deficiency.

* Food aversions – Food aversions are more common than cravings as an early pregnancy symptom. Typical aversions are tea, coffee and alcohol (some women may find the idea of alcohol makes them nauseous, even before they realise they are pregnant and take a HPT).

* Darkened areolas – Hormone changes can darken the area around the nipples during pregnancy. Some women will have more noticeable changes than others, and it can start at any early stage.

If you are 4 weeks pregnant it is completely normal to notice no pregnancy symptoms at all, but early pregnancy symptoms often mirror premenstrual symptoms. These include being more tired than usual, breast tenderness and mild cramps. Sometimes nausea starts as early as 4 weeks but between 5 to 6 weeks is more typical, or you may never be destined to suffer from pregnancy sickness at all (nearly 20 percent of mothers-to-be never develop morning sickness).

For some women, the first indication that they are pregnant is that they feel completely normal around the time of their missed period. There may be an absence of all of their usual premenstrual symptoms, such as fatigue, tearfulness or light cramping. Every woman’s experience is different, and women who have had more than one pregnancy can have very different experiences on each occasion.

Around a third of women will notice implantation bleeding shortly before their first missed period. Often they mistake this as an imminent sign of menstruation starting, and only later realise that this was an implantation bleed. The spotting can be pinkish or brown and does not become heavy or change colour, and may last up to three days. It happens when the fertilised egg burrows into the endometrial lining and starts to build connections between the mother and growing baby, which will become the placenta. This is typically 6 to 12 days after conception.

The only reliable way to know you are pregnant at this stage is to get a positive on a pregnancy test. A home pregnancy test works by testing HCG levels in urine, and are recommended from use from 14 days after ovulation (some early response brands can be used from 7 to 10 days). A positive result means you are almost certainly pregnant, but a negative result – while normally correct – is sometimes false. If you have had a negative result HPT but still think you are pregnant, wait several days and take another test.

Please be patient while we get our new blog properly up and running