When Should You Take Home Pregnancy Test?

Hurry is your worst enemy when you are taking home pregnancy test. Of course, you require a response urgently, but taking it ahead of time can throw you false results and cause unnecessary worries or disappointments.

Although some home pregnancy tests detect the pregnancy before your menstrual delay, if you read the small letters, you will see that the level of reliability is low at first, and to obtain more accurate results, you should wait for your menstruation date. In addition, irregular cycles, sporadic variations of your menstrual cycle and variables of the conception process can also confuse the dates and give you false results even when you have menstrual delay. This happens to up to 20% of women who become pregnant after a first negative result according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

What is the best time to take the home pregnancy test?

Home pregnancy tests are fairly reliable as long as you take them the right way and at the right time. Both laboratory and home tests work by detecting the hormone chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), known as the hormone of pregnancy. Your body begins to produce it when the fertilized egg is implanted in the wall of your uterus, which happens between 6 and 12 days after fertilization. From that moment, the amount of hCG present in your body doubles with each passing day. The greater the number of hCG, the easier it is detected through a home pregnancy test with more reliable results.

Blood tests are better able to detect and even quantify the hormone present in your system to determine the age of your pregnancy, but these should be done in a laboratory. Initially, the amounts of hCG may be too low to be perceived in the urine by a home pregnancy test.

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Your results are more reliable if you take the home pregnancy test when you have a delay in your menstrual period i.e. after the scheduled date for your menstrual period. This is true even for tests that ensure true results before this date. Ideally, according to FDA, you have to take the test when you have one or two weeks of delay in your menstrual period. For more reliable results, take the tips into account;

If your menstrual cycle is irregular, count at least 18 days from the date you had sex and you think you have become pregnant.

Take the home pregnancy test in the morning when you wake up. This guarantees the highest concentration of hCG in your urine and facilitates its detection.

For prevention, take a second pregnancy test between five and seven days later to confirm your result. Also be sure to follow the instructions for taking and interpreting the home pregnancy test results.