About Pregnancy Tests
What is a "home pregnancy test"?
A home pregnancy test is a test in which you urinate on a stick, and the method in which they tell you whether it is positive or negative varies from company to company. It can be a blue sign, a plus sign or a pink sign. There's all these different kinds of signs, but it is detecting the HCG hormone, the human chorionic gonadotropin hormone, in your urine to show that you have a hormone that is normally not present in a nonpregnant woman. This is a home pregnancy test.
How soon after conception can I take a home pregnancy test?
You can actually take a home pregnancy test before you have a missed period. Typically, eleven to twelve days after you ovulate or conceive, a home pregnancy test should be read as positive. So if you anticipate your period two weeks from when you conceived, and it's twelve days and you don't anticipate a period for two more days, you can still take a home pregnancy test, and it would read as positive.
What should I do if my home test is negative, but I still think I'm pregnant?
If your home prenancy test is negative and you have symptons of pregnancy, I recommend waiting 48 to 72 hours, checking again, and if you still have a missed period after that point, and it's still negative, I would then contact your healthcare prefessional.
How are pregnancy tests at the doctor's office conducted?
A pregnancy test at the doctor's office is simply a blood test that is detecting the same hormone that is trying to be detected in a home urine test. It's simply going to be a quantitative value, instead of a qualitative, meaning it's going to be a number. So HCG is registered as a number in your blood: 50, 110, 611, it registers as a number. A simple urine test is just going to say positive or negative, whereas the blood test at the doctor will be a quantitative number.
