Can Drinking Water Dilute A Pregnancy Test?

So you plan to take a pregnancy test at home. That’s great. But suddenly a question pops into your mind. Can drinking water dilute a pregnancy test? 

When you are going to take your pregnancy test for the first time, you’d feel more nervous than ever. It is natural.

There is a storm of questions raging in your mind. When should I take the pregnancy test, which is the best pregnancy test, At what time should I take the pregnancy test, etc? To make matters worse, there are certain things that we should do and other things we should avoid.

There are so many things that can corrupt the pregnancy test without your knowledge. So it is equally important to know ‘What are the things that manipulate the pregnancy test’. One must consciously avoid them.

One such doubt is that can drinking water dilute a pregnancy test? Yes, certainly the water that dilutes everything can dilute a pregnancy test.

How does water dilute a pregnancy test?

When you drink excess water, your body gets more fluid. This fluid is less in osmotic pressure (it has fewer solutes and is pure) and hence this disturbs your body composition.

Your body has to balance all that goes inside and so it wants to expel the water out. So the kidneys start filtering the water and more diluted urine is excreted.

When you are pregnant your body has just started making the hCG hormone. So it is in very minimal amounts even in a large volume of your urine.

Kidneys concentrate urine overnight as they keep reabsorbing the urine. The reason being that you don’t pee and the body needs water. This makes even a low level of hCG detectable.

Once you drink more water, the entire hCG will be like a drop in the sea and hence hard to detect!

Why do I feel like going to pee often during pregnancy?

OK, taking an offbeat question now. Talking so much about answering nature’s call has got us to answer this one too????

Your bladder and abdomen are in close vicinity. So once your womb has a baby, then the weight of the baby crushes the bladder and so you feel the urge to pee.

The bladder doesn’t bother whether there is urine, the sensors only detect pressure. So when the womb and baby apply pressure, it assumes that you need to pee and hence makes you head for the loo.

So even if you’ve drunk water and feel the urge to pee before an hour has passed it is simply because your womb is putting pressure on your bladder.

Don’t bother to go ahead and take the pregnancy test.

When can I drink water before the pregnancy test?

Well now, this is the smartest inquiry someone could make at the eleventh hour. Yes indeed does time have a huge role in deciding when water will interfere with your pregnancy test.

This is so because the kidneys take the time to filter the water and bring it to the bladder. Even after drinking water, urine will not be completely diluted for the next 2-3 hours.

Hence you have this much of time to take the pregnancy test even if you accidentally drank water.

What to do if I drank water before taking the pregnancy test early morning?

Just go and take the test if an hour has not passed. But if a lot of time has passed after drinking water schedule the test for next day.

Ladies, please note all the above instructions are for an early pregnancy test. Once you cross 3 weeks after pregnancy drink as much water you want and take the test. Nothing will interfere because your body will have formed more than enough hCG.

What to drink before taking a pregnancy test?

When a woman gets pregnant, during early stages visiting the hospital becomes a ritual. Sometimes you have to take so many tests that you know exactly what the doctor will do after every step.

Ultrasound tests require you to drink a lot of water before them. Glucose pregnancy test needs you to gulp heaps of glucose.

However, unlike other counterparts home pregnancy test is just the opposite. It requires you to avoid consuming anything.

This is because you have to determine the amount of hCG in your urine. It is like testing sugar’s presence is in a glass of water. It is easier to find it out if the sugar is present in a smaller volume of fluid.

If you will drink a lot of water before taking the pregnancy test, your urine will dilute. This will give a false negative pregnancy test in case you are pregnant.

Can drinking too much water affect a pregnancy test?

Of course, it can. Drinking too much water is the silliest mistake you can make before taking the pregnancy test.

It is best to avoid drinking anything in the morning and taking the pregnancy test. The early morning urine is darker in color because it is a concentrated sample. The level of hCG relatively will be higher in it.

If you drink too much water before taking a pregnancy test, then your bladder will fill up. The amount of urine sample is of no significance. It is the composition of urine that matters.

If you drank a lot of water early morning but you recalled in time to take the pregnancy test you can take it. But if more than 30-60 minutes pass away, then there is no point wasting an expensive pregnancy test for diluted urine.

What fluids other than water interfere with a pregnancy test?

Water is still a little bit less of a problem. Fluids such as caffeine products or wine, alcohol might cause even more chaos. Caffeine and other products are detoxified in the liver and then they flow out in urine. These can severely damage your pregnancy test. They produce a toxin that degrades the pregnancy test strip.

It is very important that you follow the instructions for ‘how to use the pregnancy test?‘ to get accurate pregnancy test results.

We recommend that you use early morning sample for a higher accuracy of the pregnancy test with respect to sample quality.