To Doppler or not to Doppler.

To Doppler or not to Doppler – that is the question. What exactly am I questioning here? Well, one of the common considerations that loss moms, or even non-loss moms but other soon-to-be-moms have when pregnant is whether they should purchase and use an at-home Doppler to regularly check baby’s heartbeat. I certainly considered whether or not it would be something I wanted to add to my Amazon cart when pregnant with baby number two. Would this help to give me the sense of ease that I needed when overthinking if baby was OK? I had a feeling it might not be a great idea, but went to the Internet for answers, and of course more importantly, to my doctor. The feedback that I received from my doctor and my own research both yielded the same answer: using an at-home Doppler is probably not the best idea. The main two reasons that this is recommended against is because it can either give you 1. Reason to worry when there is no reason to worry, or more critically 2. A false sense of security when something might actually be wrong. For some (me included), it is not easy or clear to identify baby’s heartbeat in comparison to your own, which could certainly result in you thinking everything sounds fine when it’s not. The other possibility is that you do not hear baby’s heartbeat at all because you are either not properly trained on how to use the Doppler, or the home Doppler that you are using isn’t as effective as the Doppler your doctor uses. At the end of the day, it is safest to stick with regular kick counting and checkups with your doctor to monitor if everything is normal.