Worried about heart rate

[loeylo]

I am probably more paranoid than the average person on here (see signature) but I am really worrying about my scan!

I have had two early scans, and have my third schedule for Monday. They have found a heartbeat at both scans and I know I should be reassured by that but I can't stop worrying!

My most recent scan measured me at 7+4, and we got to see the heart rate, but I would estimate the heart rate as looking around 60bpm. My question is does the way the heartbeat looks represent actual bpm at this stage or is it more just a presence or absence thing?

 

[Liammommy]

Did the ultrasound tech say the heart rate was 60 bpm?

 

[orionfox]

Im betting the bpm is higher than that. You cant calculate bpm just by looking at the heart movements. Its by the sound. For us, if you check your pulse you can find your bpm which is around 80. Babies is way faster than that and sounds like galoping horses. How to find out what the bpm is, you count for a number of seconds and then multiply that by how much to get tou to one minute.

 

[Dark_Star]

The animation on the ultrasound moves slower than a fetal heart would beat, so it would look like fewer beats than it is. Don't worry too much!

 

[Khadijah-x]

As the others have said, you can't count the beats from looking. If it was slow, the tech person would have said. But at this early stage they look for a fetal HB, not the rate. It would have been alot higher than that don't worry ♡

 

[loeylo]

Thanks ladies. She didn't measure heart rate at all, I asked her about it and she said it was fine but she didn't actually measure it. It definitely appeared roughly a beat per second but I was just wondering if a visual count was a valid measurement or if it has to be audial. I'm just really paranoid as I have got to the point of a hb and still lost the baby so I'm worrying about that!

It was just a reassurance scan to ride me over untily next scan as I had cramp so I don't know of she would has mentioned if it was slow as I am being rescanned anyway. I guess I will know on Monday.

 

[SweetV]

My last bubs the hb was 60 bpm. I was told to make an appt with my doctor that day as I should have been over 6 weeks. Follow up ultrasound was booked 5 days later. If it was that low they would have suggested immediate medical assistance as the chance of hb increasing to regular is not good at that point. I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[babifever]

I would think the tech or doctor would have commented if there was concern.

 

[orionfox]

Yeah it def has to be audial to know what it is

 

[Liammommy]

I wouldn't worry

 

[3liz]

I agree that if you were told it was fine you should not worry. A heartbeat of 60 at this stage would have been a cause of concern and it would have been mentioned to you!

By the way, you can count visually BUT ONLY if the signal has some sort of timing analysis (for ex: you see 10 spikes from time 0 til time 10 seconds). A little like we do when calculating heartrate from an ECG.

 

[loeylo]

Oh it wasn't like a heart trace thing, I just saw the flickering of the heartbeat and counted that.

Scan is only a few days now an I have been sick as a dog so hopefully will be ok.

 

[3liz]

Well then you can't know because you don't know how the machine analysed the signal and maybe what you counted in 2 seconds occured in 1 second.

I'm sure everything is fine