When Should You Buy A Pregnancy Test
When used according to the directions, a home pregnancy test can be almost 99% accurate[3]Pregnancy tests. Office on Women's Health. Accessed 7/20/2022. . If you receive a positive result on a home pregnancy test, you should contact your doctor to confirm that you are pregnant and find out what to do next.
when should you buy a pregnancy test
Should you receive a positive at-home pregnancy test result, your doctor will often perform an in-office blood test to confirm the presence of HCG. This and additional blood tests also provide additional information about your health and the health of your pregnancy.You May Also Be Interested In Products For Pregnancy From Our Featured Partner
It is impossible to get your period while pregnant, but bleeding or spotting can sometimes occur in early pregnancy. Check with your doctor if you experience bleeding or spotting after receiving a positive pregnancy test result.
There are several reasons why you might take a pregnancy test. You could be trying to get pregnant and hoping for a positive result. You might have experienced an issue with your birth control. You might even be about to have a medical procedure or start a new medication that could be complicated by pregnancy. No matter what the reason, if you ever have any questions about your test results, the best thing to do is reach out to your healthcare provider.
According to pregnancy kit manufacturers, most at-home pregnancy tests are 98% to 99% accurate when you use them exactly as instructed. Positive results can be trusted, but you can get a false negative result if you take the test too soon.
Each home pregnancy test is different. Read the instruction manual carefully. It will tell you how many minutes to wait for your result. In most cases, you can expect to wait three minutes for your result. Keep in mind that if you wait too long to check your result, it may be inaccurate.
But if you are testing early, before your period is due, you should be aware that even if your result is not pregnant, you may still be pregnant. This is because human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) levels vary from woman to woman, and there may not yet be enough of the hormone for the test to give a positive result. HCG levels rise rapidly in early pregnancy, as shown in the graph below, meaning that if you test again on the day you expect your period, your result (whether positive or negative) will be over 99% accurate.
Home pregnancy tests use antibodies to detect the presence of the hormone human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) in your urine. The most sensitive home pregnancy tests, such as Clearblue Early Detection, can detect hCG as early as 6 days before your missed period1
Even though hCG levels are very low at first, they increase rapidly in the first weeks of pregnancy.If a pregnancy test detects hCG, your result will be positive and you can be confident that you are pregnant.If the test is negative, but you tested before the day of your expected period, then there is the possibility you could still be pregnant but your hCG levels were too low for the test to detect. You should test again when your period is due.If you get a negative result on or after the day you expect your period, but still think you might be pregnant, see your doctor.
When it comes to taking a pregnancy test, all Clearblue tests are over 99% accurate at detecting pregnancy from the day you expect your period4. Some tests can also be used as early as 6 days before your expected period.Just find the right home pregnancy test for you and your needs, and make sure you follow the instructions carefully.
Taking a home pregnancy test can be exciting, but it also may be stressful. That's especially true if you're not sure whether you should trust the results. Know when and how to take a home pregnancy test. And learn some of the possible drawbacks of home testing.
The timing of ovulation makes a difference in the accuracy of a home pregnancy test. And ovulation can change from month to month. A fertilized egg also can implant in the uterus at different times. That can affect the timing of when HCG starts to be made and when it can be found with a home pregnancy test. Irregular menstrual cycles also can affect pregnancy test results, as they make it hard to figure out when a period should start.
For most home pregnancy tests, you put the end of the test in your urine stream, dip the test in a container of urine or put several drops of urine onto the test. A few minutes later, the result appears. It's often a plus or a minus sign, the words "yes" or "no," one line or two lines, or the words "pregnant" or "not pregnant."
Many home pregnancy tests claim to be 99% accurate. But home pregnancy tests differ in their ability to find a pregnancy in people who have recently missed a period. If you get a negative test result, but you still think you might be pregnant, take another test one week after your missed period or contact your health care provider.
Fertility medication or other medicine that contains HCG might affect home pregnancy test results. Most medicines, though, including antibiotics and birth control pills, don't affect the accuracy of home pregnancy tests.
A false-positive might happen if you had a pregnancy loss soon after the fertilized egg attached to the uterine lining. You also may get a false-positive if you take a pregnancy test soon after taking fertility medicine that contains HCG. Problems with the ovaries and menopause also might lead to a false-positive test result.
Pregnancy tests work by detecting the hormone hCG, which the body starts producing after conception. According to 2014 research, hCG is detectable in the blood around 8 days after conception. As the pregnancy progresses, levels rise by around 50% a day. HGC is detectable in urine a few days later than in the blood.
Anyone who has signs of pregnancy but is sure they cannot be pregnant should seek medical advice. The healthcare professional may wish to rule out other health conditions or provide treatment if required.
It is also possible to get a false negative result after using a test on a day the box says it should be 99% accurate. This is because of how different the levels of urine hCG are from person to person, and even how much they can change throughout the day in the same person. Your hCG may be on the low end, or your pee may be very dilute.
In addition, in our own (unscientific) testing, this test gave the clearest positive reading to a very dilute solution of pregnancy pee. As you can see in the photo, the First Response wand (at bottom) showed a very clear positive response with a strong fuchsia line, while the other pregnancy tests barely registered faint blue marks.
There are other rare situations where a more sensitive test could be more likely to give false positive results. For example, hCG can increase during perimenopause. One study found that 1.3% of home pregnancy tests taken by women ages 41 to 55 would be false positives. The manufacturer reported to the FDA a similar rate of false positives for this age group.
Similar to First Response Early Result, Clearblue Early Detection can detect pregnancy five days before an expected period 71% of the time (that goes up to 94% four days before, 98% three and two days before, and 99% a day before an expected period). Unlike other Clearblue pregnancy tests, this wand test also uses pink lines rather than blue, which some people find easier to read.
If you can wait longer to test and want something inexpensive that you can get at a store quickly: We like the Equate First Signal One Step test (currently 88) from Walmart. This simple and effective test produces a clear, dark pink control band, and its results are easy to read. Like test strips, this cassette-style test requires you to pee into a cup. (Unlike test strips, this test has you use a supplied dropper to add urine to the test strip.) Walmart gets these from a medical device company that has shown the test can detect 25 mIU/ml hCG. The Equate cassette is not useful for detecting very low amounts of hCG, and some customer reviewers have reported false negative results when using this test.
A qualitative hCG test simply checks for hCG. It gives a "yes" or "no" answer to the question, "Are you pregnant?" Doctors often order these tests to confirm pregnancy as early as 10 days after conception. Some can detect hCG much earlier.
A quantitative hCG test (beta hCG) measures the exact amount of hCG in your blood. It can find even very low levels of hCG. These tests may help track problems during pregnancy. Your doctor may use them along with other tests to rule out an ectopic pregnancy, when the fertilized egg implants outside your uterus, or after a miscarriage, when hCG levels fall quickly.
On the basis of clinical judgment, health care providers might consider the addition of a urine pregnancy test; however, they should be aware of the limitations, including accuracy of the test relative to the time of last sexual intercourse, recent delivery, or spontaneous or induced abortion. Routine pregnancy testing for every woman is not necessary. If a woman has had recent (i.e., within the last 5 days) unprotected sexual intercourse, consider offering emergency contraception (either a Cu-IUD or ECPs), if pregnancy is not desired.
Most pregnancy tests have about the same ability to detect hCG, but their ability to show whether or not you are pregnant depends on how much hCG you are producing. If you test too early in your cycle or too close to the time you became pregnant, your placenta may not have had enough time to produce hCG. This would mean that you are pregnant but you got a negative test result.
Because many women have irregular periods, and women may miscalculate when their period is due, 10 to 20 pregnant women out of every 100 will not detect their pregnancy on the first day of their missed period.
How do you do this test? For most home pregnancy tests, you either hold a test strip in your urine stream or you collect your urine in a cup and dip your test strip into the cup. If you are pregnant, most test strips produce a colored line, but this will depend on the brand you purchased. Read the instructions for the test you bought and follow them carefully. Make sure you know how to get good results. The test usually takes only about 5 minutes. 041b061a72