Monitor Heart Beat

Monitor Heart Beat
Anyone have one of those baby heart monitor thingys?

The machines that let u hear the baby’s heart beat, not quite sure what they are called, fetal doppler, sonacid? I heard lots of names for them. Anyhoo has anyone got one at home, and are they any good?
Thank you

I rented a doppler during my pregnancy. I found it indispensible, but honestly I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone. I don’t remember the name of the company I used — I did a bit of ‘net research, asked some women on some pregnancy bbs what they used, and took it from there. (A few phone calls and looking at a few pics showed me that most rental places offered the same dopplers, anyway.) ETA: It was storkradio.

The problem with a doppler is that if you have trouble finding the heartbeat you’re likely to freak out. And depending on the position of the baby, the position of your placenta, and your own body weight, finding the heartbeat may or may not be easy to do. So a doppler isn’t for everyone, depending on how alarmist you are, etc. But it can be an incredible thing to have for peace of mind. I rented one because I had had several losses and knew that even my bi-weekly ultrasounds wouldn’t be enough for me. Once I got used to using the doppler I didn’t have any problems, but even so there were times when things took a while to locate. If you do rent one, I urge you NOT to rent one early on — in other words, even though you’ll hear women tell you they found the heartbeat with a fetal doppler at, say, 9 weeks, don’t do it that early, as you’re more than likely setting yourself up for some major stress. When pregnant with twins I waited until 11 1/2 weeks before renting the doppler, and used it throughout my entire pregnancy. It worked wonderfully and brought me tremendous peace of mind (and was also helpful in ways that didn’t bring peace of mind so much, such as when I wasn’t feeling one of my babies movements — everything turned out fine, but having my doppler enabled me to basically make sure that something wasn’t right before heading to the hospital, instead of just wondering whether it was all in my imagination and hesitating to bother people on Christmas Day.)

TOPCOM HB 10M00 Pulse Watch – Heart Beat Monitor with coded strap + PC LINK + GPS – www.topcom.net -