Should one worry if there is no heart beat in 6 weeks pregnancy scan? – Dr. Teena S Thomas

FHS is Fetal Heart Rate. Fetal Heart Rate is absent at 6 weeks. There are many patients where we do an early pregnancy scan, which is 6 weeks and plus, we do not see a heart beat. There may be many reasons like thick abdominal wall, or obesity, but you may see a fetal pole and a sac. If you see a regular gestational sac with a fetal pole and yolk sac and if you do not get a heart beat, then nothing to worry, just repeat the scan after 1 week. But at 6 weeks, you see a gestational sac and you do not see a fetal pole and yolk sac, then probably there is little more to worry, because you haven’t seen the fetal pole at all because 6 weeks is the time when you should have seen. There are people with delayed cycles, delayed pregnancy, who would have ovulated a little long, who have been on infertility treatment. If a fetal pole and yolk sac is seen at weeks of pregnancy, then you can repeat to see the heart beat, there is nothing major to worry about.