Ban the DIY baby scanners
More and more mums-to-be use them at home to listen to their child’s heartbeat. So why are worried midwives demanding...
VICKI McNEllY was days from giving birth to her first baby — a much-wanted daughter she had already named Evie — when she crept downstairs at 3am one morning, unable to sleep.
‘I had felt Evie moving only hours earlier,’ says Vicki, 29, who lives with husband Stephen, 30, an engineer, near Reading. ‘But that morning, as I stroked my bump, I knew instinctively that something wasn’t right.’
Vicki reached for her home doppler, a handheld device similar to the ultrasound machines midwives use, which can detect a baby’s heartbeat.
Named after the 19th- century physicist Christian Doppler, they can cost anything from £10 to nearly £600 and are being used by an increasing number of expectant mothers.
‘I’d borrowed mine from a friend and used it a few times for the novelty of hearing our baby’s heartbeat,’ says Vicki. ‘But now, I wanted reassurance that she was alive.
‘I could hear something — although it sounded different to the sounds I’d heard before. But I convinced myself there was a heartbeat.’
Vicki felt sure her baby would move after she’d had breakfast, and sent her husband to work as usual.
Yet, even after eating, she didn’t feel any movement. ‘I kept reminding myself I’d heard her on the doppler and that everything would be fine.’
Tragically, everything was far from fine. At 10am, Vicki was still concerned and went to hospital for a check-up.
‘When the midwife said: “I’m sorry, I can’t hear a heartbeat”, the world fell from underneath me,’ she says. ‘Another midwife performed a second scan and, on the screen, I could clearly see that the chambers of Evie’s heart were still, so black and empty.
‘I was distraught. Stephen arrived and we both cried. It was horrible. The family we had longed for had just slipped through our fingers.’
Vicki had to be induced and gave birth to her daughter that evening. ‘She was perfect and gorgeous,’ sobs Vicki. ‘The post-mortem could find no cause for her death. I’ve wondered, if I hadn’t used the doppler, would I have gone into hospital sooner?’
The pain of a stillbirth or neonatal death is one endured by 6,500 mothers every year in the UK. Many expectant women use home dopplers to reassure themselves their baby is alive and well. But some medical experts warn they do more harm than good, offering false reassurance to mothers whose babies might actually be in danger.
Now, a campaign is under way urging a ban on the sale of home dopplers. ‘The Government has set a target to reduce the number of stillbirths and neonatal deaths by half by 2030,’ says Elizabeth Hutton, CEO of the charity Kicks Count, which has launched a petition. ‘The banning of home dopplers will be a vital step towards that.
‘An untrained pregnant woman does not have the necessary skills to understand what she’s hearing. The placenta and mother’s heartbeat can both easily be mistaken for a foetal heartbeat — and women can be falsely reassured.’
Midwife Hannah Harvey, founder of says: ‘Around half the mothers I see have dopplers at home — and it’s on the increase.
‘But a trained midwife looks for all kinds of things from a doppler reading, such as acceleration and deceleration of the heartbeat, which can be a sign the baby is in distress and could result in a stillbirth. A mother might hear her baby’s heart beating at 90 beats per minute (bpm) and assume everything is all right — but a midwife would know a healthy range should be between 110 and 160 bpm.
‘Some are paying hundreds for their dopplers, and they can lull you into a false sense of security.
‘Instead, we advise women to get used to their baby’s movements and recognise what’s normal. If there is any change, they should call their midwife.’ Becca Underwood, a company director from Cannock, Staffordshire, misread a doppler in 2014 while pregnant with her first child. ‘I was about 22 weeks pregnant when I felt my first movement. I had read something on Facebook about dopplers, so I bought one,’ says Becca, 27, who lives with husband Matt, 34, a civil servant.
‘I used it for reassurance, sometimes a few times a day. When I heard the “whoosh, whoosh” of the heartbeat, I’d feel everything was OK. But it turns out I wasn’t listening to my baby’s heartbeat, but the sound of my placenta. In fact, my baby wasn’t growing properly. A midwife picked up a problem at a routine check. She feared my placenta was failing and my baby was in danger. She was horrified I’d been using a home doppler.
‘She asked me to show her what I’d been doing — that’s when she pointed out the sounds I was hearing were not my baby’s heartbeat at all.’ Becca ceased using her doppler and, instead, monitored her baby’s movements. She was also checked regularly by the hospital. When it became clear her baby was in distress, Becca was induced at 34 weeks and Minnie arrived safely in October 2014, weighing 3lb 12oz.
Becca, who has since had Ronnie, six months, adds: ‘Had I continued using the doppler, there could have been a very different outcome, and Minnie might not be here today.’
Some women admit becoming ‘addicted’ to using dopplers, and the Royal College of Midwives is concerned the devices can cause unnecessary stress in mothers.
Kirsty Meredith, 42, a telesales adviser from Essex, says she became obsessed with using a doppler during her pregnancy nine years ago with son Conwy.
‘After I’d had my daughter in 2003, my husband and I struggled to conceive for years,’ she says. ‘When we finally did, I was so anxious to ensure everything was all right that I bought a doppler.
‘I started using it sometimes three or four times a day, for peace of mind — but it had the opposite effect. I’d get in a state if I couldn’t locate the heartbeat, and it created a lot of tension between me and my husband.’
She adds: ‘I had high blood pressure, which is common in pregnancy, but I wonder if using the doppler increased that. On a number of occasions, I rang the hospital in a panic.
‘When it looked like my son could be born early, my midwife urged me to stop using the doppler. At around 28 weeks, I made a conscious decision to stop and monitor movement instead. I felt calmer, and my son was born healthy at full term.’
Yet, despite the concerns of professionals, the use of dopplers continues to rise. There are even phone apps claiming to be able to mimic the machines, though their effectiveness is questionable, as phone microphones are not thought to be sensitive enough to pick up a baby’s heartbeat.
Online forums are full of debate, with some women arguing the devices provide vital reassurance when they feel most vulnerable.
They seem particularly popular with women who have lost a baby in the past. Photographer Kristy Ranson, 37, is pregnant with her sixth child and has been using a home doppler.
‘I lost my fourth pregnancy, a son, at nearly 17 weeks. When I went for my scan, I knew by the look on the midwife’s face I’d lost him,’ she says. ‘But she wanted to check with her colleagues, so other midwives came to look.
‘Before I knew it, there were lots of people in the room, all knowing that my son was dead — and yet I was the last to know. I felt humiliated, as if I hadn’t got my private moment to grieve.
‘When I became pregnant again, the fear of walking into a scanning room and seeing the baby dead on the screen was overwhelming, which is why I wanted a doppler. Before each check-up and scan, I would use it to check if there was a heartbeat and mentally prepare myself for the worst.’
Vicki McNelly — who became pregnant with her second daughter, Florence, born last July — now pleads with expectant mothers not to use the devices. ‘I urge any friend who gets pregnant not to use them. In any future pregnancy, I’ll trust my gut.’