How To Use A Pregnancy Test

A pregnancy test is a urine test that detects the level of human chorionic gonadotropin in a woman’s body. Human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, is a hormone that is produced only by pregnant women. Levels of the hormone appear and increase daily after the fertilized egg implants into the wall of the uterus. A woman’s HCG levels can vary greatly, and when the hormone becomes detectable is different for every woman. If a woman uses a pregnancy test too early, she may get a false negative because there may not be enough HCG in her system to register with the test yet. However she may still be pregnant. Pregnancy tests can give a false negative result, but they will not give a false positive. This is because if there is any HCG in the urine, a woman is pregnant. The hormone only exists in pregnant women, so there is no mistaking if the hormone is present. Many doctors warn against the uses of early detection pregnancy tests because it is so common to receive an inaccurate reading. Doctors advise that women not take pregnancy tests until after a period

has been missed. If a woman receives a false negative, she may continue drinking, smoking and taking prescriptions that she should not take if she is pregnant. She will be less likely to retest herself until she has missed yet another menstrual period, and damage could have already been done to the fetus. A home pregnancy test also must take into account human error. It is important to follow the directions exactly in order to get an accurate reading. Most tests require holding the test stick in the urine stream for a full five seconds. The stick should then be placed on a flat surface until the results appear. Failing to follow the directions could result in an inaccurate reading.