Doppler - should it detect the heartbeat at 10/11 wks?

Hi Girls, I was with my doctor at few weeks ago when I was approx. 10/11weeks pg & they used the doppler but couldn't hear the heartbeat, they said it was normal not to hear a heartbeat - so I took their word as this was my first time being pg (though i knew the heart starts beating at around 6/7wks). Also I thought the machine looked a bit old, sounded very crackly & noisy, so I thought maybe the machine was the problem? The next day things started to go wrong & it turned out that I had a missed mc at 6wk & 2days. I'm still none the wiser re the doppler & am very curios to know if anyone had a similar experience but went on to have a healthy pg/baby? I guess I want to know if the doc should have been more concerned by this -should they have sent me in to get a scan done in hospital? Or did they perhaps play it down due to the fact that they knew I was going off on hols the next day? If anyone has any thoughts I'd really appreciate them as I'll need to bear this in mind for the next time(hopefully) as maybe I should move to a new doc. Sorry for long post & thanks for reading

Hi there, I'm really sorry to hear that you lost your little bean. Please God that was your first and last time. Unless you don't get on well with your doctor I don't think there's any need to change. It's totally normal not to hear a heartbeat on a doppler at that stage. When I was 15 wks my gp warned me before she used the doppler not to get worried if we couldn't hear it because it was still very early. I don't want to sound harsh but if a miscarriage is going to happen there is very little that could be done to stop it. So even if your doctor was concerned that he hadn't heard a hearbeat and sent you for a scan, if things weren't right with your little bean at that stage I'm afraid a miscarriage would have been unavoidable. It can't have been your GP's fault. I know that the baby's heart starts beating around the 6 week mark but it can't be heard on a doppler until much later. Again, I'm sorry to read that you've been through the awful experience of having a miscarriage but Pleas God the next time you get pregnant (and very soon!) you'll have a sticky bean. Hope that answer helps. Zoey

Sorry to hear abot your loss maybebaby10. I second what zoey has written, at that stage it is quite common not to detect the heartbeat with a doppler (allthough not impossible). In my case, because the placenta is to the front they were even struggling at 18 weeks and later and on my other pregnancies my GP would not even attempt to listen to it before 16 weeks as he said chances are he will not find it and he didn't like doing it before then as the future mammies would just get anxious if the heart beat wasn't found with the doppler - so your GPs reaction was perfectly normal.

Sorry to hear about your loss. As the girls have said, doctors are told not to attempt to use them before 16 weeks, as the chances of hearing the heartbeat is slim. My hospital has a policy of not trying before 18 weeks, so as not to worry people.

I agree with the others. My doctor wouldn't check for a heartbeat until I was 18 weeks. He told me at 10 weeks that he wouldn't even try in case he couldn't find it and I got worried.

Thanks for your replies girls. I'll bear that in mind for the future re the doppler. Unfortunately I've only started to attend this doctors surgery & so have no real relationship /previous experience with them, hence my heightened anxiety but this has put my mind at ease. Thank you. [/img]