THE BASICS:

The Hi Bebe BT200 Fetal Doppler is one of a number of products that have hit the market recently to enable you to hear your baby's heartbeat. Retailing at £69.99 it's at the higher end of the market as far as these devices are concerned (cheaper alternatives can be picked up for £20-30.

THE LOOK:

Deliberately designed to resemble the dopplers used by midwives in an attempt to create customer confidence, the doppler consists of a base unit in white plastic that contains the speaker and heartbeat display (the 'doppler' can also be used with earphones), linked via a telephone style wire to the 'ultrasound' probing unit which is run against the stomach.

FUNCTIONALITY:

2AA batteries, which fit in the base unit, are included as well as the ultrasound gel. along with a hard plastic carry case.

Frankly, the claim that this thing can function from 10-12 weeks is dangerous (at worst) and liable to promote a false sense of security (at best). Most midwives won't even attempt to find a baby's heartbeat until at least 18 weeks precisely because it's difficult to find and therefore creates unnecessary anxiety in the pregnant women. I completely failed to find my baby's heartbeat until about 24 weeks with this.....

Even then I was never quite sure what I was picking up. Was it my heartbeat, the placenta, or the baby's? I had polyhydramnios from 30 weeks, a condition that makes it difficult for even the midwife the find baby's heartbeat; if I hadn't had this diagnosed I would have been very paranoid about the difficulties I had using this product.

My third winge is that this encourages non-trained medical professionals to use a product that they cannot possibly know how to recently. Several cases have been featured in the press recently in which women in the later stages of pregnancy used a fetal doppler when concerned about their babies' lack of movement, which encouraged them that all was well. In fact, in these cases all was not well, but the women had picked up their own heartbeat using the doppler, delaying medical assistance. While no-one can ever know whether earlier medical assistance would have made a difference for their babies, it remains the case that once they'd (eventually) got medical attention the babies' were dead.

So, if you treat the device as a bit of fun, then that's fine.... but using it for reassurance probably isn't wise.