Pregnancy Test

by Steve Nevry

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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