Home pregnancy tests are always a fun topic to discuss. They are the kick off show to every pregnancy, and there is a lot of debate over things like whether there is such a thing as a false positive and whether the dollar tests are accurate. Here is an overview of the basic rules of home testing:
1. Use your first morning urine. I know it’s hard to wait until the next morning when you just bought a pack of tests the afternoon before, but it will be worth the wait. Your hormone levels are highest in the morning, so if you’re an early tester and you are pregnant, you’ll be more likely to get an accurate result in the morning. If you suspect you might be six weeks pregnant or more, it doesn’t matter when you test. By that point your hormones will have already increased to the point that a home pregnancy test will detect them at any time during the day.
2. Don’t look at the test right away. Resist the urge to watch the test while it works. Set it on the counter and leave it there. Walk out of the room if you have to. Whatever you do, don’t shake the test to make it “work faster.” If anything that will hinder the test from working properly. I would suggest leaving the room for five minutes and coming back to look at the results. Once ten minutes have past, toss the test because anything you might see in that little window after ten minutes is no longer valid. That is where we hear about these false positives: they are more than likely evaporation lines.
3. Use the dollar tests first. If you get a faint line, retest with a digital, but don’t waste your money on buying digital tests every month. The test strips inside of a dollar test are the same ones used everywhere else. The only downfall to using any line test is that women have a tendency to see lines where there are none when they are desperate to conceive. So follow it up with a digital when you think you have a positive result, just to be sure. The digital doesn’t lie.
Related Articles:
New Pregnancy Test Detects hCG Sooner
Waiting to Take a Pregnancy Test
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Home Pregnancy Tests