What you need to know about home pregnancy tests

These days it is much faster and easy for you to find out if you are pregnant, and that too, with great accuracy. You just have to use one of the home pregnancy tests. The information below will tell what you need to know about home pregnancy tests.

Woman with pregnancy test

How They Work

A home pregnancy test measures the urine levels of the human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG, which is a pregnancy hormone produced by the growing placenta.

HCG will go into the urine and bloodstream almost right after an embryo starts to implant in the uterus, which occurs six to twelve days after egg fertilization.

The test will indicate a positive result once it detects hCG in your urine. Depending on the brand, it can show a pink or blue line, a big yes or a positive sign.

When to Test

Although you might be anxious to find out if you are having a baby or not, you should wait for a few days before peeing on sticks. While the HPTs are becoming more accurate and sensitive than ever, there is actually a limit to how fast they can work.

Even if you are pregnant you are likely to get back a false negative if you are testing seven days following ovulation.

This is because your urine will not have enough hCG to show a positive test even if you’re pregnant. If you wait a few days to do the test you are more likely to get a positive result.

A home pregnancy test can be taken as early as the first day of the missed period. This is because the body needs some time to develop detectable levels of hormones.

There are some tests which promise to give sixty percent accuracy 4 days prior to the expected period. You will have around a ninety percent to chance to get the right result and testing is expected on the day of your next period.

About 10% of women experience chemical pregnancies[1] in which they have menstrual bleeding even after their pregnancy test was positive. This happens when an embryo is shed with uterine lining few days after the expected period.

If you test several days later, your accuracy rate will go up higher. It will go up to ninety-seven percent if you wait for a week later.

Getting the Best Results

In general, a home pregnancy test will probably be the simplest one that you can take as you just have to read the directions on the package thoroughly and then follow them carefully to get the most accurate results.

You will either hold the pregnancy test stick for several seconds in a stream of urine or dip it into a cup of collected urine and then wait for the results.

This will only take a few minutes. Any line that is visible in the result panel, regardless of how faint, would mean that hCG is in your system and you are going to have a baby.
Image: Bigstock

References

  1. https://www.self.com/story/chemical-pregnancy-facts
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40 Comments

  1. leandra herring August 25, 2018
    • Daniella Hall August 25, 2018
  2. Bola July 10, 2018