What Are Qualitative and Quantitative Pregnancy Tests

Written By

Reviewed By - Dr. Almas Nazim, MD

Updated: December 10, 2018

Precap
What are Qualitative and Quantitative Pregnancy Tests? A Qualitative pregnancy test only tells you whether hCG is present or not. On the other hand, a Quantitative pregnancy test tells you exactly, quantify, how much hCG is present. Both confirm pregnancy but only a quantitative test tells you how far you’re in the process. Home kits are qualitative and a clinic blood test or beta hCG tests in blood are quantitative.

What is a qualitative pregnancy test?

A qualitative pregnancy test only detects hCG hormone and shows that you are pregnant based on its presence or absence.
A qualitative pregnancy test is popularly known as a home pregnancy test. The stick pregnancy test you take is a qualitative pregnancy test.

When to take a qualitative pregnancy test?

A qualitative pregnancy test is the first preliminary pregnancy test a doctor recommends. It is the step before doing a quantitative pregnancy test.
You have to take the qualitative pregnancy test after you experience early pregnancy symptoms.
The early pregnancy symptoms include tender breasts, missing your periods by more than a week, cramps, mood swings, etc.

How is a qualitative pregnancy test performed?

A woman takes a qualitative pregnancy test as instructed by the particular pregnancy test kit.
It is a basic procedure of exposing the pregnancy test to urine and then allowing the pregnancy test to develop results.

How to read a qualitative pregnancy test?

A qualitative pregnancy test displays the result in the form of lines or symbols.
If the test line appears, then the pregnancy test is positive, and otherwise, it is negative.
Some pregnancy test use symbols such as a plus sign for a positive pregnancy test and minus sign for a negative pregnancy test.
Digital pregnancy test shows the results as written phrases ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant.’

What does a qualitative pregnancy test tell?

A qualitative pregnancy test simply tells you whether you are pregnant or not.
It doesn’t differentiate between a healthy pregnancy and an unsustainable pregnancy.
It might be that the qualitative pregnancy test detects hCG present due to other medical conditions such as ovarian cysts. In this case, it will give a false positive pregnancy test.

Qualitative and Quantitative Pregnancy Test

What is a quantitative pregnancy test?

A quantitative pregnancy test is a test which estimates and quantifies hCG present in your blood. A quantitative pregnancy test validates healthy progression of your pregnancy.
A doctor performs the quantitative pregnancy test using advanced medical assays.

When to take a quantitative pregnancy test?

A quantitative pregnancy test comes after taking a qualitative pregnancy test. You’ve to go to the doctor whether you get a negative pregnancy test in spite of pregnancy symptoms or a positive pregnancy test.

How is a quantitative pregnancy test performed?

A blood test is done for performing the quantitative pregnancy test.
Doctors withdraw a small volume of blood for performing the quantitative pregnancy test.
He will insert a needle into the superficial vein of your arm near the elbow and then cover the puncture.
You don’t have to follow any particular instructions like fasting.
Then your blood will go for testing, and you will get the reports after a day or two.

How to read a quantitative pregnancy test?

Usually, you don’t have to interpret a quantitative pregnancy test as the results are written in the report.

However, if you want to know what does a particular hCG level indicate you can refer to these ranges:

If hCG levels are below 5 mIU/ml then you are not pregnant.
If the hCG level is between 5 mIU/ml to 25 mIU/ml then repeat the test.
Levels of hCG above 25 mIU/ml show that you are pregnant.

In early pregnancy hCG levels reach 1200 mIU/ml and double every 48 hours.

A minimum 66% increase occurs within 48 hours. When hCG level is between 1200 – 6000 mIU/ml then it doubles in 72 hours. If the hCG level is higher than 6000 mIU/ml, it takes about four days to double.

The hCG level goes on increasing with the progression of pregnancy.

What does a quantitative pregnancy test tell?

Depending on the hCG level obtained a quantitative pregnancy test estimates the stage of pregnancy.

Levels of hCG during pregnancy week wise:

From the 3rd week of pregnancy hCG levels are considerable

3rd week of pregnancy	5 - 50 mIU/ml
4th week of pregnancy	5 - 426 mIU/ml
5th week of pregnancy	18 - 7340 mIU/ml
6th week of pregnancy	1080 - 56,500 mIU/ml
7th - 8th week of pregnancy	7650 - 2,29,000 mIU/ml
9th - 12th week of pregnancy	25,700 - 2,88,000 mIU/ml
13th - 16th week of pregnancy	13,300 - 2,54,000 mIU/ml
17th - 24th week of pregnancy	4060 - 1,65,400 mIU/ml
25th - 40th week of pregnancy	3640 - 1,17,000 mIU/ml