The act of listening for sounds within the body, chiefly for determining the condition of the lungs, heart, pleura, abdomen, and other organs, and for the detection of pregnancy: While Mary, who was pregnant, was at the gynaecologist's for a checkup, the baby's heartbeats were listened to by the method of auscultation.

The act of listening to the internal sounds of the body, and in this case, it is performed without the stethoscope: Tom used direct auscultation to determine if he could detect the heartbeats of his unborn child inside his wife’s uterus.

The act of listening performed by the aid of an instrument (stethoscope) interposed between the ear and the body part being examined: The midwife wanted to know if the heartbeats of the fetus were all right, so she decided to use the method of mediate auscultation and wanted a stethoscope for it.

The situation of listening to the sounds of the fetal heart in pregnancy: Every time Jenny went to the gynaecologist's for her regular checkup when she was pregnant, an obstetric auscultation was performed in order to make sure that her unborn baby was developing all right.