A medical supply fetal stethoscope also known as a fetoscope, is designed for finer auscultation of the fetal heart. As early as 20 weeks of pregnancy, the fetal heartbeat can usually be heard without ultrasound or Doppler Amplification with the use of a special kind of stethoscope. This is the fetoscope. This is intended for use by professionals.

A fetoscope is a method for evaluating fetal heart tones during the primal pregnancy, labor and birth. The heartbeat can be greatly heard over the baby’s back. But, in some cases where in the mother is overweight or fat or the placenta is on the front wall of the uterus, it will be difficult to hear the fetal heart by the stethoscope.

The use of a fetoscope provides all the information needed for the care of low-risk women. Even through contractions, variations in babies’ heart rates can be heard and determined. It is said that a medical supply fetal stethoscope has mostly been replaced by the electronic sonicaid and only used by many poorer countries. A sonicaid is a modern listening device also used in the care of pregnancy. It has a highly sensitive microphone and a small loudspeaker which enables to amplify and monitor the fetal heartbeat. Because of the loudspeaker, it allows not only the midwife or the doctor to use and listen to the heartbeat. Sonicaids are especially mace with different specifications, mostly having a digital display that shows heart rate of the fetus in beats per minute.

Although the sonicaid is widely used nowadays, some medical professionals still prefer to use and stick with the manual way of monitoring the heart beat of the fetus with the use of a medical supply fetal stethoscope rather than the electronic way of doing it.