For those who are hoping for a pregnancy (or not), the pregnancy test is a fundamental point to resolve your doubts. The question mark only disappears after confirming with a clear positive (or negative, if that’s the case) whether or not there is a pregnancy in progress. The problem is that the convenience of pregnancy tests can sometimes make people question their effectiveness. Who has never wondered if a pregnancy test is really reliable? Such great pharmaceutical technology at our fingertips—could something go wrong? What are the best brands and how can you do it correctly to avoid a false positive or false negative? Let’s demystify all these questions here.
First of all, we should know when to take the pregnancy test. Most women who want to get pregnant start thinking about the test as soon as their fertile period ends. It’s not uncommon to find eager hopefuls taking a pregnancy test as early as 8 days after ovulation. It’s also common to find women who are trying to conceive with a large stock of pregnancy tests at home (I was one of them, yes I admit it).
However, it’s pointless to have the most reliable pregnancy test in the world if you don’t take it at the right time. The test only works correctly after there is a missed period and HCG in the body. In other words, you can get a false negative if you take the test before the ideal time frame. Still, a negative test result can be definitive if there’s truly no pregnancy. Does that make sense?
In short: Don’t take the pregnancy test before your period is late. For women with regular cycles, a reliable pregnancy test is even more effective. For irregular cycles, it’s recommended to wait up to 22 days after sex or the fertile period before taking a test. The ideal timing to take the test is directly linked to its effectiveness! So cooperate with the test and wait a little longer to confirm a positive or negative result.
The pregnancy test is reliable when: It has a high level of accuracy. To know if one brand or another is among the select group of reliable tests, look for a recommendation from a friend. There are brands that rarely give evaporation lines, false positives, etc.
Sensitivity matters: The best pharmacy pregnancy tests are 10 mUi sensitive! Most are 25 mUi, but the more sensitive ones can detect pregnancy right at the beginning. Some brands are well known in the market for having 10 mUi sensitivity. Clearblue, Confira, One Step, Unitest Plus, and others.
You may find on the packaging that they’re 99% accurate from the first day of a missed period, but it’s best to interpret each case individually. Not all women will get a positive result on the first day of a missed period, because the implantation of the embryo might take longer than expected, and only after this does the HCG hormone start to be produced. The reliable pregnancy test detects even minimal amounts of HCG in the body, and the line may be so faint it could almost go unnoticed—this often leads to doubts. Usually, two visible lines, no matter how strong or faint, indicate a positive result.
I’ve Had Issues With Pregnancy Tests—Now What?
There are many women who have experienced issues with pregnancy tests. Evaporation lines, smudged tests, half-lines… It’s also quite common to find this kind of story on the internet, but most often it involves second-rate brands, made with inferior materials compared to more famous tests with good reputation and credibility. It’s also possible to find a faulty batch from a reputable brand or have trouble reading the result. For example, with Fast Test.
I’ve used it several times and on a few occasions, it produced a faint false positive. Although Clearblue is a great brand, if you read the result after 10 minutes, it can develop visible evaporation lines, in the color of the test dye, not gray like the pink dye tests. In this case, the blue ink becomes visible even for a false positive. This brand specifically should give a result as soon as the urine rises, at most 5 minutes after dipping it in the urine.
Maybe this is why pregnancy tests seem like a villain for some women. It’s possible their credibility is shaken if you’ve had a bad experience. But know that these are exceptions and not the rule. It’s also important to know how to take the test correctly. In this post I explain in detail how to take a pregnancy test to avoid mistakes or problems.
Nowadays, pregnancy tests are of great quality—I’ve even seen positives on a pharmacy test before a quantitative beta HCG blood test could detect it. But if you still have doubts, opt for the quantitative blood test; it will leave no doubts.
See also: How to Interpret the Result of a Pregnancy Test and Beta HCG Photo: Provided by readers
