Your Pregnancy

The moment you are convinced you are pregnant, your first thought is taking a home pregnancy test. Convenient, quick, simple to use and easily available, it seems like the ideal thing to do. Here is what you must know about home pregnancy tests before you take off for the nearest pharmacy.

Pregnancy tests, by the way, are US FDA regulated. There are several over the counter home pregnancy tests available that you can use in private to get immediate results. There are pregnancy tests that tell you that you are pregnant barely six days after you conceive or immediately the day after you miss your period. For you, this means that as soon as you know you are pregnant, you can start planning the kind of prenatal care you want.

A Look At How Home Pregnancy Tests Work

You have probably wondered how a home pregnancy can tell you so quickly whether you are pregnant. Here is what happens. Pregnant women, once they conceive, produce a hormone called hCG or human chorionic gonadotropin. Even tiny traces of hCG are immediately identified. All you need is that urine sample and the antibodies in the test detect the pregnancy hormone in the urine. What you do is add your urine sample to a special container that has the antibodies and wait for the specified time as indicated in the test. Then, you watch for the color change that tells you whether you are indeed pregnant.

There are home pregnancy tests available that will even warn you if you have not done the test in the right way. These tests produce results in three minutes or so and are available as pen-like instruments in which the hCG is detected by the antibodies.

Is My Home Pregnancy Test Accurate?

Naturally, the maker of the home pregnancy test will claim 100% accuracy. Invariably the reasons why results could go wrong are if the test is not done properly or if the product is well past its expiry date. Sometimes if the test is exposed to sunlight, it may not function properly. If the user has cancer, the test may not show up the right result. Most of all, instructions provided must be followed.

With home pregnancy tests, accurate results are best got when the test is repeated again after a few days. This is simply because as soon as you conceive, the hCG hormone levels can be low. Also, depending on the test, if it is not that sensitive, it may not really detect the hCG even though you might actually be pregnant. Therefore, wait for a few days and do the test again. The moment you think you are pregnant, arrange to see your doctor because the sooner your prenatal care begins, the better for you and your baby.

Note: This is for information only. For any concerns, issues, diagnosis and treatment please get your doctor’s advice.

Most of the women who think they are pregnant, but are not sure, use home pregnancy tests. But how many of them know how these tests work and if the result is true or not? Well, first of all a woman should know when the test must be taken and which are the best home pregnancy tests.

So, the first think to know is that these tests detect the pregnancy by measuring the presence of a hormone in the urine. The hormone is called chorionic gonadotropin, and is a telltale hormone. But how can this hormone tell you if you are pregnant or not? Well, this hormone is produced by the placenta. When the egg is fertilized and finds it’ s place in the uterus, this hormone is released into the bloodstream.

This usually happens about six days after the egg has been fertilized. From that point the amount of this hormone in the body is doubled every two days. So in about fifteen days after the fertilization took place, the home pregnancy test should be able to indicate if your are pregnant or not. But it all depends on the test. It is said that most of them are not sensitive enough to detect a pregnancy even at that stage. For better and certain results

it is indicated you should take the test a week after your the day that you were expecting your period.

It was believed that home pregnancy test were very accurate, almost 100 percent, even taken the day when a woman misses her period. Later studies have shown that this belief was misleading. The amount of the telltale hormone in the urine can differ from a woman to another very much. It can be different in any given days after the implantation had taken place. Studies have been made on different groups of women, and reaschers discovered that the home pregnancy tests are not sensitive enough to detect a pregnancy

in the first day that the woman missed her period. It worked for almost 15 % of the tested woman. But the the same home pregnancy tests showed to be very precise when taken seven days after the menstrual period was expected.

Of course when reading this, one would wonder why these tests claim to be so accurate, if they are not? Well the fact is that the ninetynine percent accuracy that this tests pretend to be is because the sensibility of the tests can detect a pregnancy, but not in it’s first days or in the first day of the missed period. The home pregnancy tests can determine a pregnancy, but it matters when this test is taken. To find out how to choose a pregnancy test and use it, be sure to read part two.

For more inforamtion about pregnancy calculator please visit pregnancy test or http://www.pregnancy-1st-guide.com/