In the case of suspected pregnancy, the most commonly used method to confirm or rule it out is the pregnancy test It is bought at the pharmacy and you can do at home. Thanks to him, you can quickly and easily know if you are expecting a baby or not.
There are many doubts that arise around the pregnancy test, so we answer here the seven most frequently asked questions about the pregnancy test.
1) How does the pregnancy test work?
The home pregnancy test has a very simple operation. There are different ways, but they all have a reactive absorbent strip inside that detects the presence of chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG) in urine, the pregnancy hormone.
When pregnancy begins, the cells that will form the placenta begin to secrete this hormone in women, which can be detected through the blood or urine, which are the ones we will talk about here.
When the test strip comes into contact with urine, it is able to recognize, with greater or lesser sensitivity, the amount of pregnancy hormone contained in your urine.
2) What pregnancy test to buy?
There are several brands in the market. The best sellers are what they have an elongated shape, similar to that of a pen. Everyone has in common that they incorporate a display to read the result and an absorbent test strip at one end. Only test strips that must be dipped in a pot with urine are also sold, but the former are more practical.
There are those that indicate the result in the form of hair lines, the best known, or the digital ones that represent the result with faces (happy for positive and sad for negative) with an estimate of the weeks of pregnancy.
You should also know what is important test sensitivity, that is the amount of hormone capable of detecting. There are more sensitive than others, depending on the brand. Try to buy one that detects the lowest hCG concentration. For example, a test that says detect hCG at 20 mIU / ml (International milli-units per milliliter of urine) will be more sensitive than one that claims to detect it at 50 mIU / ml.
There are even advanced that detect hCG concentrations equal to or greater than 12.5 mUI / ml and promise to give a reliable result even four days before the first offense.
3) When to take the pregnancy test?
As I said before, it depends on the sensitivity of the test. For added security, it must be done from the first day of absence of menstruation.
But of course, it is not the same in women with regular cycles, who know the day when the period should come, than in irregular women who have less control over their cycle.
If you are not regular, it is recommended to do it or repeat it one week after the date scheduled for the arrival of your period.
4) How to do the pregnancy test?
It can be done at any time of the day, although for greater security it is recommended to do it with the first morning urine, which is the one with the highest concentration. First of all, you must open the package and read the instructions.
You should remove the wrapper, uncover the test and wet the test strip with your urine for 5 seconds. There are two ways to do it: urinate directly on the strip, or do it in a boat and immerse the strip in the urine for 5 seconds.
Once done, you must reposition the lid and let it rest on a flat surface for 3-5 minutes (according to the instructions). Then, you can proceed to read the result.
5) How to read the result?
Most of the tests show two results: a hairline that indicates whether there is a pregnancy or not and a control one, which indicates whether the test was done correctly or not.
If two lines appear, although the intensity is low the result is positiveOn the other hand, if only one hairline appears in the control window, it indicates that the test was successful but the result is negative.
In the digital ones there are no lines, but the result appears in the form of a happy face when there is pregnancy and a sad face when there is no pregnancy.
6) Can the pregnancy test fail?
Home pregnancy tests have a reliability of between 75 and 97 percent if the result is negative, while if the result is positive the reliability is 99 percent.
Can the test yield a false positive? In women with hormonal disorders or with certain diseases that cause the secretion of the human gonadotropin hormone, such as trophoblastic pathologies or some cancers, the result can be positive without pregnancy.
Can the test give a false negative? If done too soon, pregnancy hormone levels may be very low and not yet detected in the test.
7) In which cases should the pregnancy test be repeated?
If the result has been negative but the menstruation still does not occur, you should repeat the test 2 to 4 days later, when the presence of a pregnancy hormone should already be detected.
You must also repeat it if no result appears in the control window, you may have done it wrong. Read the instructions again and repeat the test.
