Sometimes it happens that women forget to take a birth control pill or to use another birth control method or just family decided to have a baby. The result is the same in both situations – no menstruations and nausea. Well, it looks you may be pregnant! How to check it without going to gynecologist? Home pregnancy test (HPT) will help to test the presence of a pregnancy after 2-3 weeks after ovulation.
The history of pregnancy test
Women tried to test the presence of pregnancy even in Antiquity – the ancient Egyptians watered bags of wheat and barley with the urine of possibly pregnant woman. In the beginning of XX century, there were used so-called “rabbit tests” – it was discovered that it is possible to test pregnancy if you inject the urine possibly pregnant woman into a rabbit. There would be corpora hemorrhagica in the ovaries of the rabbit. To see bulging masses on the ovaries, it was necessary to kill the rabbit, so even if woman was not pregnant, poor rabbit would die.
Fortunately, today we don’t have to kill any rabbits to find out the pregnancy. Pregnancy tests today look for Human Chorionic Gonadtropin (hCG) – a hormone produced during pregnancy and to tests are easier to perform – all you need is blood or urine.
Home pregnancy test – how to take it?
New home pregnancy tests can find out the presence of pregnancy even after 2-3 weeks after ovulation. These pregnancy tests are sensitive to measure the hCG hormone in woman urine. Testing kit is very easy to use. First what you have to do – check the expiration date and make sure that testing kit is still valid to use. Read the directions carefully, because they can vary from brand to brand, for ex., some brands recommend to value results after 5 min, another after 10 min. In addition, some tests vary in the displaying results – one show pink lines on the test strip, another reveal a red plus or minus sign. Next step – make a pee and drop as many urine drops to indicator as it’s written in directions and wait 5-10 min (as it is recommended in directions). Usually for better and more accurate results, it’s recommended to use morning urine. Remember, do not read results after 10 minutes!
Now you can value the result – positive pregnancy test result – two coloured lines on the test strip, negative pregnancy test result – one coloured line on the test strip. The result is invalid if no red line appears on control window or if a line appears only in test window.
False positive result
A false positive result – when test shows the presence of pregnancy, but woman is not pregnant. It may happen when woman have so-called “chemical pregnancy”. It means, that a fertilized egg implanted into woman’s uterus and developed enough to start producing hCG, but then stopped developing. If it happens, woman will go on having menstruation. Whereas new generation of pregnancy tests is sensitive to measure pregnancy in an initial stage, it’s recommended to wait for about a week after period is due.
So, if you pregnancy test result is positive, you have to immediately consult with your gynecologist about your pregnancy. Even if your pregnancy test result is negative, but you feel being pregnant, you should take another test some days later and consult with gynecologist.
