Home heart rate monitors are dangerous in the hands of untrained mothers according to new information published by the BMJ say the Telegraph.

Without training the sounds detected could be easily misinterpreted say Doctors Abhijoy Chakladar and Hazel Adams from Sussex University Hospital.

Mothers using them are more likely to measure their own heart beat and NOT their baby's.

The use of home monitors may also result in women unnecessarily referring themselves to general practitioners and obstetric units when they cannot hear the fetal heart because of inexperience, they say.

'Home' heart rate monitors, which allow mothers the privilege of hearing their babies heart beating in their womb are primarily for 'non-medical' use - as seen in the information above.

Medicine Exercise equipment