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Listen To The Heart!

By: James Brown Yes, your heart can be heard with a stethoscope. The stethoscope can be seen around your doctor's neck nearly every visit. It is equipment designed to listen for sounds your body may produce. This includes moving gas in patients. The main reason is to listen to your blood flow in your peripheral vessels. Many OB-GYN hear the first heart beats of your unborn baby with a stethoscope.

There are many sounds that the human body puts off. The stethoscope can pick up sounds from:

1. Heart

2. Stomach

3. Lungs

4. Human fetuses

There are also abnormal sounds that a stethoscope can hear:

1. Normal or abnormal respiratory

2. Cardiac

3. Pleural

4. Arterial

5. Venous

6. Uterine

7. Fetal

8. Intestinal sounds

You can recognize the stethoscope by it's shape. It is shaped like the letter Y. The shape helps in allowing sounds to enter from the flat stoppers placed on your chest to enter the tubing and travel up the tubing to the hearing piece that is applied in the ears. Stethoscopes are designed with two hearing sides for hearing low and high sounds. The modern stethoscopes are designed with only one pressure head.

There are different types of stethoscopes:

I. Binaural- designed for use of both ears

2. Single - for one ear use

3. Differential- listeners can compare sounds at two different body points.

4. Electronic- amplifies tones electronically

You can also find stethoscopes that are designed only to hear sounds that your throat produces and fetal heartbeats.

The doctor may have you to breathe in and out , he is checking your lungs and airways with his stethoscope by placing it on your chest. The bell allows the physician to hear different sounds in different parts of the chest. Once your lungs are checked , your diaphragm is checked the same way. Normal sounds would not include crackles or wheezing.

Fluid in the lungs can cause them to deliver a crackling sound. A whistling sound may be related to wheezing. This happens when your airway is contracted.

Listening to your stomach may be done by placing the stethoscope on the left upper part of the abdomen. The stomach produces gurgling sounds . Just below the ribs lies the small intestines which can also be heard. In the lower abdomen , the large intestines can be listened too. The noises put off by the intestines are called borborygmi. This is completely normal. This is simply movement of gas; food movement ; or fecal material.

Isn't it amazing what a stethoscope can hear.