Tests Help Women Determine Whether They Are in the Family Way or Not
Am I pregnant?
For women who have been trying to conceive, taking an early pregnancy test is a big moment. The whole “am I or aren’t I?” question is about to be answered and the emotions tied up with the big reveal cannot be overestimated.
It’s so easy these days –you open a box with a stick in it – go to the loo and pee on the indicated end. Minutes later you have a relatively accurate result and you know if you are pregnant or not.
But repeatedly taking tests can get expensive and so disappointing if they’re negative again and again.
So when is a realistic time to take an early pregnancy test to both minimize expense and disappointment?
To answer that it’s best to learn how they work and how your body changes in those early days of pregnancy.
How they work
Home pregnancy tests detect the presence of the pregnancy hormone hCG (Beta Human Chorionic Gonadotropin), in your urine.
Your body starts to produce hCG when a fertilised egg implants in your uterus and is secreted by the cells which will go on to form your baby’s placenta. It can usually be detected in your urine from about six to 14 days after fertilisation.
Ideally women should wait until they’ve missed a period and felt some pregnancy symptoms before testing. Then the early pregnancy test would simply confirm what they already strongly suspect.
How soon should I test?
A really early pregnancy test is very unlikely to be accurate. Assuming intercourse happens at the right time in the menstrual cycle it can then take sperm up to five days to travel up and actually fertilise the egg.
Once the egg is fertilised, it has to travel the rest of the way down the fallopian tube and into the uterus where it will implant in the prepared lining. This implantation usually occurs 5 – 7 days after ovulation.
Then you have to wait for hormone levels to rise high enough to be detected on a test.
The earliest that you should test is seven DPO – (days past ovulation). Any sooner and it’s likely the embryo won’t have had time to implant yet. Only a very small number of women will get a positive test at 7 or 8 DPO. It is still very early to test and it also assumes that you are exactly right about which day you ovulated.
More women can get a positive test 9 – 11 DPO. This is within that “5 days before your missed period” window that most tests state they can show a positive for.
But some women will still not show up at this point.
The best early pregnancy test time is 12 – 14 DPO, or just before you expect your period. At this point the egg should be nicely nestled in and have started to produce the necessary hormones to turn the test positive.
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