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 Pregnancy
Test
I
still remember the day my wife found out that she was pregnant. We were
returning home from a movie (coincidentally a movie about kids!) when
on an impulse, my wife decided to purchase a home pregnancy test kit.
We had been trying to start a family for quite some time and it was
sheer coincidence that she chose that day to buy and use the pregnancy
test kit. We came home, she went into the rest room to administer the
test and we both sat and watched with glee as the two lines (indicating
a positive test) materialized on the stick. The pregnancy test had
worked, and confirmed her pregnancy and we would soon have our baby!
But we wanted to be doubly sure and decided to read up on pregnancy
tests. We were especially concerned about how accurate the results of
such self administered tests were and whether these pregnancy tests
were reliable at all. The information we found as comprehensive.
Basically there are two kinds of pregnancy tests. First, there is the
blood test (which cannot be done at home; you need the services of a
healthcare facility or a trained healthcare services provider to get
the results from this sort of a pregnancy test). The next, the one we
had used, is the urine based home pregnancy test, which can be done in
the safety and security of your home.
In order to administer this test, the female places the test stick (or
container in some cases) in her urine stream. Some variations of this
pregnancy test may call for a few droplets of urine to be dropped into
the test container. There is a short waiting period, and viola! The
pregnancy (or the lack of it) is instantly revealed. The pregnancy test
is able to do this because it seeks out a special hormone (the human
chorionic gonadotropin or hCG) that the woman produces during her
pregnancy. If the hormone is present in the urine stream, the woman is
pregnant and the test is positive. If there is no discernable presence
of the hormone, the woman is not pregnant and the test is negative.
However, it so happens that if the pregnancy test is carried out very
early, the body would not have started production of the hormone.
Hence, at least two tests, spaced over a couple of weeks are advisable.
Although most home pregnancy tests are considered to be at least 97% to
99% accurate, there are a number of things that can interfere with
their results. Since pregnancy tests work by looking for signs of the
pregnancy hormone, any drug that has sizable quantities of this hormone
will vary the results of the pregnancy test. In such cases, you will
have what is commonly known as a ‘false positive
test’. This means that the pregnancy test will show you as
being pregnant, although you are not. But there is still an element of
surety attached to a negative test. Because even if you are using drugs
that contain the pregnancy hormone (to treat cases like infertility) a
negative test means no pregnancy. Most other over the counter drugs,
antibiotics and even alcohol or other stimulants will not have any
impact on the test results of a pregnancy test.
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