When to take a pregnancy test? You can take a home pregnancy test with a kit after 14 days from ovulation. Placenta takes time to build up hCG to reach the sensitivity of home kits. Two weeks wait after missed period gives accurate positive results.
Pregnancy tests have those so important lines that can make you or break you for the next nine months. Before buying a pregnancy test, a woman must decide when to take a pregnancy test.
Depending on her condition she needs to figure out whether she will be able to test early or not. For instance, a woman undergoing an IVF therapy cannot test early. The fertility drugs interfere with the pregnancy test.
While buying a pregnancy test a woman checks how early she can take the pregnancy test. It is more important to see when the pregnancy test achieves the highest accuracy as there is no point of a pregnancy test that allows you to test early but has high chances of giving a false result.
It is best to time your pregnancy test after your body is sure to achieve the required levels of hCG hormone.
When to take a pregnancy test according to hormone levels?
After conception, the fertilized egg travels down the tubes and implants in the uterus. If the tubes have a blockage or any other problems, then the embryo stops there and doesn’t move ahead.
This creates a problem for pregnancy progression and thus causes tubal pregnancy. If the pregnancy proceeds normally then anywhere between 6-12 days after conception implantation bleeding occurs.
After this step, your body begins the formation of the placenta. This layer produces the hCG hormone. The pregnancy hormone rises in concentration up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
After that, the levels start dropping and come back to a level.
The hormone hCG comes along urine and also is present in the blood serum. Pregnancy tests detect a specific concentration of this hormone in urine.
They are of different sensitivities depending on the brand of pregnancy test. A pregnancy test that can detect 20 mIU/mL of hCG is more sensitivity and will achieve accuracy earlier. Thus taking a pregnancy test which has a higher sensitivity will detect pregnancy earlier.
Does taking early pregnancy test work for only some women?
Early pregnancy tests have higher sensitivity. When a pregnancy test is more sensitive, that means that it can detect traces of hCG hormone in urine. After finding the hormone hCG, pregnancy tests show a test line.
It is what you see as the second line and a positive pregnancy test. If you are using a digital pregnancy test, then you will get a result saying ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’ depending on your state.
When can you take a pregnancy test also depends whether you are conducting the pregnancy test at night or morning. If you are going to take the pregnancy test at morning, then you can test early. It is because early morning urine has a higher concentration of hCG. Overnight the urine gets concentrated due to reabsorbing of urine.
For testing at random time of the day you need to wait for few weeks to pass from the day of the missed period.
Early pregnancy tests may not work in case of women who have low levels of hCG. The reason being that they need even more time for reaching the threshold hCG levels for coming in the category of pregnant women.
When to take a pregnancy test after a missed period?
Most pregnancy tests claim that they achieve a 99% accuracy rate after a day of missed period.
You can take a pregnancy test in the morning after the day of the missed period. Accuracy rates reach 98% for most pregnancy tests. Nonetheless, it is still early to take a pregnancy test at random time during the day as hCG levels in random urine samples will be low.
You may drink tea and have caffeinated products during the day that interfere with pregnancy tests. You can store urine for 24 hours before taking a pregnancy test at any random time during the day.
When to take a pregnancy test after a missed period is best answered as two weeks. After two weeks the chances of getting a false negative pregnancy test fall greatly.
There is very less chance that your body still doesn’t have enough hCG to get detected.
When to take a pregnancy test during the day?
A pregnancy test at night is not forbidden because you can store urine. You can store urine for 24 hours in the refrigerator.
A pregnancy test at night may not be accurate as there are chances that the urine sample has a lower concentration of hCG.
It will not happen once you cross two weeks after a missed period. It is important that you time your period right. Due to miscalculation of the date of the period you may still time your pregnancy test early unknowingly.
It is best to wait for early pregnancy symptoms to start and then time your pregnancy test. If you are having implantation spotting, then you should wait for about three days after its cessation. Only after implantation bleeding does the placenta formation begin. The placenta is responsible for the production of hCG. Without Placenta, there will be no hCG.
While waiting from the ovulation day to implantation bleeding, when to take a pregnancy test is a big dilemma. You will be bored of checking your panties for implantation bleeding, but the waiting is essential. It is better to wait than let haste make waste.
