There are multiple symptoms which indicate whether a woman is pregnant or not. In the past, pregnancy was confirmed on the basis of missed periods which used to fail on many occasions. Later, blood tests become the most practiced procedure to confirm pregnancy. Now, many pregnancy tool kits are very accurate to confirm the pregnancy. Apart from these procedures, home pregnancy tests are also a popular method to detect pregnancy.
The most prominent signal of being pregnant is the missed period. So never take the missed period very lightly and one day after the first day of your missed period do the pregnancy test to detect the accurate result. It is not always possible to predict the date of the periods so if you miss your period for over a week, go for the popular and authentic pregnancy tests so that the test can detect whether you are pregnant or not more accurately.
Types of pregnancy tests
The presence of HCG hormone in women’s body helps to detect the Pregnancy. During pregnancy, the level of HCG hormone in the body increases is it is produced to give nourishment to the embryo. Fertilized egg releases HCG hormone and they can be traced in the blood and urine within two weeks after conception. 8 to 11 weeks is the ideal time to do the pregnancy determination test. Two pregnancy test types are commonly used to detect pregnancy. They are,
- Urine tests: Urine test can be done either in a clinic or they can be tested in the home to with the help of many pregnancy kits available in the market. Urine is collected and the strip is dipped into it. Indication marks appear on the screen of the pregnancy kit to tell you whether you are pregnant or not. If the test is done in the morning it will show a more accurate result.
- Blood test: blood tests are done in the clinics under medical supervision and it cannot be done at home. The blood test report confirms or rejects the pregnancy.
Drawbacks of pregnancy tests
Although most of the pregnancy test procedures are accurate and give appropriate results but there are many cases when the pregnancy test reports fail to show the proper result.
- False negative response: Although the pregnancy kits are 97% accurate, the rest 3% are those women whose periodic cycle is not regular. Therefore HCG hormone cannot be detected properly by the tool kits and give false negative first response pregnancy test report. The HCG hormone almost doubles in 48 hours, so those who have irregular periods must go for a second test within 48 hours to confirm the accurate result.
- False positive response: Most of the Pregnancy kits give accurate result if urine is tested within a week of the missed period. There are some exceptions when the pregnancy kit falsely indicates a positive response. There are many reasons behind such error and one of the most common ones is the miscarriage. HCG can be present in the body till the next period cycle after a miscarriage and if a pregnancy test is done during this period it will indicate a positive response. In some rare cases, the presence of a tumour in the uterus also indicates a false positive response.