Recording and sharing
A recording is only worth keeping if the heart in it is the right one
This is the part people actually keep, and it is also the easiest part of the category to fake, because a recording of static with a number written over it looks exactly like a recording of a baby. So Firstsong saves what it heard and what it decided about it, together, in the same list.
Three public recordings and three verdicts, decided in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
Firstsong is not a medical device, it is not a doppler and it does not use ultrasound. It cannot tell you that your baby is well and it cannot rule anything out. If you notice fewer movements than usual, call your midwife or maternity unit now. Do not wait to try an app first.
The thing nobody checks until years later
A saved recording outlives the session it came from. You play it back much later, and by then the only thing you have is the audio. If the app that captured it was quietly amplifying your own pulse, that file is a recording of your heart, and nothing inside it will ever tell you so.
In 1,995 public reviews of this category, the phrase my own heartbeat appears 103 times. Those women are describing exactly this: a file they kept and later doubted. So the recorder saves the verdict beside the audio. A fetal rhythm with the rate it held at, or the mother, or nothing found today. Even the sessions where nothing held get saved and labelled, because a run of quiet days is the normal shape of this and deleting the failures would make the app look better than it is.
What a saved listen contains
The audio as you heard it
The real filtered and amplified recording that was in your headphones. Not a loop, not a sample from a library, not a cleaned up version made afterwards. Dull and low, because that is what a belly sounds like.
The verdict, in words
A fetal rhythm and its rate, or the sentence saying the steady rhythm was yours, or that nothing held. The words are saved with the file so the meaning cannot drift away from the sound.
How much of it agreed
How many independent windows found the same rhythm, and how far apart they were. Two recordings that both say 143 are not equally good evidence, and this is the part that tells you which was which.
How far along you were
Because what the app is willing to promise changes with the week, and a session at 30 weeks and one at 39 are not the same thing to look back on.
Where it lives, and where it does not
| Place | What is there | Who can reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Your iPhone | Every recording, in the app's own storage | You, and anyone you have unlocked the phone for |
| Your own iCloud | The same recordings, if you leave iCloud on for the app | You, on your own devices, under your own Apple Account |
| A server of ours | Nothing at all | Nobody, because there is no account and no server in the path |
Sharing with the person who is not in the room
A saved listen leaves through the normal iOS share sheet as an ordinary audio file. AirDrop it, message it, email it, put it in a family thread. Nothing routes through us, there is no link to expire and there is no page anybody has to sign into.
The verdict travels with the audio, so what arrives is not twenty seconds of what sounds like weather with no explanation attached. And the honest half of that: once a file has left your phone it is a normal audio file on somebody else's device. It can be forwarded, and we cannot pull it back, because it never passed through anything of ours.
Sharing is not a separate purchase either. In the reviews of this category, being made to pay again to send a recording to the father is one of the most repeated complaints there is.
Check the sound before you plan to keep it
The tool plays a baby, a mother and a recording with nothing in it, and runs the real engine over each one in front of you. It is the fastest way to hear the difference between a file worth saving and a file that just sounds nice.
Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, no account, no cookie.
Why there is no account
An account means a server. A server means a database that maps an email address to a pregnancy, plus a password reset flow, a support queue, a backup, a breach surface and a company that can one day be sold. None of that improves what you hear through the headphones.
So there is none of it. No sign up, no email required to use the app, nothing about your pregnancy leaving the phone. This website works the same way: no cookies and no third party requests, which you can verify in your browser network tab right now. The privacy page says it in full.
What we can prove about the engine that made the file
Those recordings came from research sensors on the belly, not from an iPhone microphone against real skin. How much survives the move to a phone is the number we do not have yet, and it is why this site carries no launch date. When we have it, it goes here whatever it says.
What a recording cannot do
It is one moment of one afternoon. It cannot rule anything out, it says nothing about the hours around it, and it is not a substitute for feeling your baby move. A file you can play back is a nice thing to have and a bad thing to reason with.
If you notice fewer movements than usual, or any change in the pattern you know, call your midwife or maternity unit straight away, whatever any recording sounded like. The UK NHS guidance on movements does not mention apps, for a reason.
One email, the day it opens
Firstsong is not on the App Store yet. Leave an address and you get exactly one message when it is, with the price on the first line. No newsletter, no drip, no partner offers. You can reply to that email and a person reads it.
Stored on our own server, never sold, never shared. Your IP is hashed, not kept. Nothing about your pregnancy is asked for or stored.
Common questions about recordings
Can I export the audio?
Yes, as an ordinary audio file through the normal iOS share sheet. It is not locked to the app, it is not streamed from us and there is no separate charge for sending it to somebody.
Do my recordings go through your servers?
No. There is no account and no upload. They sit on your iPhone, and in your own iCloud if you leave that on for the app, under your own Apple Account rather than ours.
What happens if I change phone?
With iCloud on for the app they come across with everything else. With it off they do not, because there is no copy anywhere else. That is the direct cost of not holding your audio, and we would rather state it than hide it.
Can I delete one?
Yes, and deleting removes it from the phone and from your iCloud copy. There is no third copy waiting somewhere to be forgotten about.
Why keep the sessions where it found nothing?
Because they are the truth about how this works, and because a quiet day is not a failure. An app that only saves its wins teaches you to expect a result every time, which is the exact habit that makes this category dangerous.
Can I leave it recording overnight?
No, and please do not try. This is not something to leave running while you sleep. It is a short deliberate listen, and it tells you nothing about the hours you were not listening.
Keep reading
- What it sounds like. the double knock, and why it is duller than you expect
- iPhone specifics. the microphone, the capture mode and the Watch
- Is it my heartbeat or the baby. the reason the verdict is saved next to the audio
- Privacy. what this app and this site collect, which is close to nothing
Last checked 2026-08-23