PARENTS BUY FETAL MONITORS FOR HOME USE.

This article reports on the availability of fetal heart monitors for use at home. The hand-held devices are similar to the ones being used by physicians. It also use Doppler ultrasound to amplify the heartbeat. The fetal heart monitors are widely available on Web sites such as baby-beat.com and heartones.com. They can be rented for about $20 to $50 a month or purchased outright for between $150 and $600. Several thousand monitors are rented or sold each year to families, according to varying estimates from manufacturers.