How Accurate Are Home Pregnancy Tests
Home pregnancy tests are generally considered very accurate so if you get a positive result, give yourself permission to celebrate.
Still, its important to note that, while very rare, false positivesare possible. Certain fertility drugs contain hCG and can result in a positive reading when youre not actually pregnant, warns Frederick. An expired test can also lead to a faulty reading. False negatives can happen too. Most commonly, this would be the result of testing too early.
Keep in mind that pregnancy tests may have slightly different sensitivity levels. One might be positive and another negative on the same day in a woman who is newly pregnant, and the difference is the quality and sensitivity of the pregnancy test, says Sara Twogood, MD, an ob-gyn at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and author of Ladypartsblog.com. Still, home pregnancy tests purchased at stores and pharmacies are regulated by the FDA, so suffice to say, most are considered very reliable.
Why You Can Trust Us
We independently investigate and recommend products we believe will enhance the lives of our readers and meet their specific needs. Weve spent countless hours doing in-depth research on pregnancy test brands and pregnancy detection to find the best at-home pregnancy tests on the market. You can trust our review because we did the legwork for you in these specific ways:
- Independently researched each pregnancy test brand on our list
- Mystery shopped the brands
- Surveyed pregnancy test users
- Read verified customer reviews from trusted third-party sites such as Better Business Bureau and Consumer Reports
- Contacted brands customer service teams to ask questions
- Reviewed research into the efficacy of pregnancy tests
Our Pick: First Response Early Result
*At the time of publishing, the price was $13.
For its high sensitivity, accuracy, and speedy results, we think a First Response Early Result manual pregnancy test is the one youll want to get. Its the most sensitive over-the-counter pregnancy test you can buy. Its as easy to read as a digital test and much less likely to give you an error message. In addition, in our tests it gave the clearest positive reading to a very dilute solution of pregnancy-positive pee. Results came in quickly, taking only 40 to 45 seconds on average.
Unlike the Clearblue and EPT tests, the First Response test doesnt have a separate window for a control line, but we found the strong, dark-pink lines easy to decipher for both positive and negative results.
To mimic the earliest days of pregnancy, I prepared a very dilute solution of hCG-positive urine. As you can see in the photo, the First Response manual test showed a very clear positive response with a strong fuchsia line, while the other pregnancy tests barely registered faint blue marks.
Since our original testing in 2015, we havent found a more sensitive nor easier-to-use-and-read home pregnancy test. Wirecutter staffers who have used the First Response since 2015 have found that it indeed picks up on hCG and displays a pregnant result sooner than digital tests from First Response and Clearblue.
Read Also: Mayo Clinic Pregnancy
When Should I Take A Pregnancy Test
If youve been trying to conceive, youre probably anxious to take a testand stat. But youll want to plan your fateful potty-trip wisely. The truth is: Home pregnancy tests are most accurate when you take them after you have already missed your period, explains , MD, reproductive endocrinologist and medical director of HRC Fertility in Orange County, California.
Early-result pregnancy tests are designed to detect the hormone as early as six days before your missed period. Still, the odds of getting a false reading narrows as you approach the date of your expected period. You should also try to take your home pregnancy test when you wake up, as first morning urine is most concentrated, meaning a test is more likely to detect hCG levels, explains Pope.
How Soon Can I Take A Pregnancy Test
There are a number of early pregnancy tests that claim to give you a result up to 6 days before the day of your missed period . However the earlier you use them, the less reliable they are and the higher the risk of a false negative or false positive. Some of them have just over 50% accuracy when used super early the same as flipping a coin.
We agree with the advice from doctors, midwives and fertility experts to wait until the day after your period is due or at least until the test youre using has 99% accuracy. Though we do understand that it can be tough to hold out that long.
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Pregmate Hcg Pregnancy Test Strips
Pregmate A Ladys pregnancy emotional support, interesting, aint it? Amazons best early pregnancy test is quite popular all for the right reasons! Well, ladies are known to be excited when they are expecting euphoric, perhaps? Thats why Pregmate ensures their best home pregnancy test is available in variants with 10, 25, 50 and 100 count strips. Do you ladies feel equipped & prepared?
What We Like
- Early detection with enhanced sensitivity
- Easy to comprehend the results
Our Verdict
It is advisable to use this test strip 5 days before your missed period. The results are overwhelmingly 99.8% accurate rest assured! Easy to use and easy to understand each of the tests is packed in an individual pouch. Dont forget to use these wide strips the next time youd wanna be sure about the good news.
Advice For Future Moms
If you wish to become pregnant, take note of the following tips:
- Talk to your pharmacist about folic acid, an essential vitamin for foetal development and safe pregnancy. All women who wish to have a baby should take vitamin supplements containing folic acid and start a few weeks before conception. Your pharmacist can tell you more about this.
- Stop smoking as soon as possible since this habit is very harmful to you and your child. Your pharmacist can help you in the process of quitting cigarettes for good. Ideally, see him or her before becoming pregnant.
- Avoid consuming alcohol. Reducing your intake of alcohol at the moment you decide you want to become pregnant provides your child with a healthy environment that promotes his or her development. Avoiding alcoholic beverages altogether is an even safer choice. Because it is impossible to determine the exact moment of conception, it is best to abstain from drinking as soon as you start trying to conceive, especially since exposure to alcohol during the first trimester can be particularly harmful to the embryo/foetus.
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Q: How Long Do Tests Take To Show Results
When you are taking a pregnancy test, how long you have to wait to see results depends on the test. It could be less than a minute, five minutes, or as long as 10. With manual tests, try not to lose your patience and decide that the test must be done before the time it says on the package. Likewise, you cant necessarily trust the results if you pull a test you took out of the trash hours later: Some manual tests will have a line appear after a while that does not reflect a positive result. This is a so-called evaporation line, which is just a mark made when your urine evaporates from the test and can be mistaken for a positive result.
How To Use A Home Pregnancy Test
Meredith Shur, MD, FACOG, is board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as a certified medical examiner.
You can use a home pregnancy test to determine whether or not you may be pregnant. You may have missed your period or be worried that your birth control didn’t work. Home pregnancy tests are pretty simple to use, but it is very important that you carefully read all of the directions. The tests’ accuracy depends on you correctly following the directions and interpreting the results.
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Q: Can You Be 5 Weeks Pregnant And Test Negative
Probably not. Interestingly, Ann Gronowski, a pathologist at the University of Washington in St. Louis, and her colleagues examined in a series of studies how some urine-based pregnancy tests used in healthcare and hospital settings can give false negative results five or more weeks into pregnancy. This is because of a flaw in some tests in which they fail to detect a degraded form of hCG, that becomes more prevalent in the body after five or six weeks of pregnancy. However, this likely isnt a concern with at-home tests. If you think you are pregnant but continuously test negative, you should talk to a healthcare provider.
Does It Matter If The Pregnancy Test Is Cheap
“It doesnt matter what brand or price point your test is, they will still be up to 99 per cent accurate when you use them as long as you use them correctly,” says Dr Cichi. “However, some cheaper pregnancy tests may not have as many features as the more expensive ones such as a better handle for convenient use and a shorter wait time.”
Read more: How accurate are cheap pregnancy tests?
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Healthpoint Clear & Simple Midstream Pregnancy Test 1
Best value midstream test
mIU sensitivity: 20mIU | Time it takes to show result: 5 minutes | Number of tests in a pack: 1 | Day when 99% accurate: Day after your period is due
Another great budget option is the Clear & Simple Pregnancy Test. Very similar to the Poundland Firstvue Pregnancy Strips, the test has a 20mIU sensitivity and a 5-minute show time, however for the same price you only get 1 pregnancy test here.
The main difference is that this purse-friendly test has a plastic wand, so its easier to use in your wee stream very handy if you need to test when youre not at home.
You can test from up to 4 days before the date of your missed period, but if you do test early, it recommends using your first wee of the morning, as this is when the hCG is most concentrated.
For over 99% accuracy, wait for the first day of your missed period as our MFM home tester found. She said, I had a negative result with the Clear & Simple Pregnancy Test when I used it two days before my period was due. I tested again though two days later and got a very strong positive.
Best Pregnancy Tests And How To Use Them
Noticing some early pregnancy symptoms? It might be time to take a pregnancy test! Here are the best pregnancy test sticks, test strips, digital pregnancy tests, and “early detection” tests on the market today.
The suspense is killing you: Could you be expecting a baby? If you think you might be pregnant, it’s time to buy a home pregnancy test! These devices work by testing your urine for human chorionic gonadotropin a hormone that your body starts producing shortly after conception.
After the embryo attaches to the uterine wall, it can take several days for hCG levels to rise enough to produce a positive test result. You can take most home pregnancy tests three to four days before your missed periodbut if you test too early, you’re more likely to get a false negative, where the test says you’re not pregnant but you really are, says Laurence Cole, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chief of women’s health research at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. It’s best to wait until after missing your period for the most accurate results.
Thinking about buying a home pregnancy test? Check out our round-up of the best options available today, including pregnancy stick tests, pregnancy test strips, digital pregnancy tests, and “early detection” pregnancy tests.
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Testing When You Feel Pregnant
You may decide to take a pregnancy test because youre having early pregnancy symptoms, including:
- Breast tenderness
- Mood swings
- Slight morning nausea
Depending on whether a positive pregnancy test would be good or bad news, symptoms like these may fill you with dread or excitement. But heres the good news: pregnancy symptoms dont mean youre pregnant. In fact, you can feel pregnant and not be pregnant, or not feel pregnant and be expecting.
The same hormones that cause pregnancy symptoms are present every month between ovulation and your period.
Many symptoms similar to pregnancy symptoms can be caused by other things, like a cold, the flu, or even a few nights of poor sleep.
I Saw Someone Else’s Pregnancy Test Result Online And It Looks Darker Than Mine/different From Mine Should I Be Worried
When you first get a positive pregnancy test, it can be tempting to compare your results to others’. This is a big no-no, according to Dr. Diaz. “Each pregnancy is different, and comparing pregnancy test results with other people may lead to confusion and unnecessarily stressful situations.” If you’re concerned about your pregnancy test results, check in with your healthcare provider ASAP.
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Why You Should Trust Us
For this guide, we interviewed Laurence Cole, PhD, a researcher who has long studied home pregnancy tests, and Dr. Tania Serna, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Im a science writer with a PhD in chemistry and 10-plus years of lab experience, so I can accurately make solutions and test them . Ive also been pregnant twice, including while writing the original version of this guide, so I know what its like to take a pregnancy test when you really want to know what it says.
Home Pregnancy Test Accuracy
- Medical Author: Omnia M Samra, MD
- Medical Editor: Bryan D Cowan, MD
- Medical Editor: Francisco Talavera, PharmD, PhD
- Medical Editor: Lee P Shulman, MD
If you think you are pregnant, you may want to test yourself at home with a home pregnancy test. You can buy test kits at a drug store without a prescription. Home use kits measure a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin in your urine. However, these tests are qualitative, and the results are either positive or negative for pregnancy.
The most sensitive test of pregnancy is best performed by a laboratory using a sample of your blood. These tests not only detect human chorionic gonadotropin but also can indicate the amount of the hormone, which doubles every 2-3 days during the first several weeks of pregnancy. These more sensitive tests can tell you approximately how long you have been pregnant and even detect specific problems with the pregnancy. Your doctor can perform this test.
Initially, many women prefer the privacy, convenience, and quick results from home test kits. Home pregnancy tests are not as accurate as blood tests done by your doctor. They also cannot determine if your pregnancy is developing as expected. The hormone hCG may be detected in urine about 2 weeks after conception . With the home test kit, you place a drop of your urine on a prepared chemical strip. It usually takes 1 or 2 minutes for the strip to indicate the result.
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How Accurate Are Pregnancy Tests
Pregnancy tests can show a negative result, even though you are pregnant. This happens when:
- Its too early in your pregnancy, and the pregnancy test is not sensitive enough to pick up very low levels of hCG.
- You had a lot to drink before the test, and the amount of hCG in your urine is very dilute.
- The test has not been performed correctly.
A pregnancy test will not show a positive result without the presence of hCG, but in rare cases, a woman may produce hCG without being pregnant. These include:
- A biochemical pregnancy. An egg is fertilized but does not implant in the uterus. The tiny bundle of cells produces hCG, which, in some cases, can be detected, but the woman doesnt go onto being pregnant because the cells do not implant and grow into a fetus .
- Pituitary hCG is occasionally produced by the pituitary gland in the brain. Most women with pituitary hCG are over 55, but rarely, individuals as young as 41 may produce it .
Independent testing of home pregnancy tests shows they are not necessarily as accurate as the 99% accurate on the first day of your missed period as they claim. However, for the majority of users, most tests will detect between 80 and 95 pregnancies out of every 100 pregnant women .
Pregnancy Tests You Can Take At Home
Home pregnancy tests all work the same way: by measuring the amount of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin in your urine. To take a pregnancy test, you either pee directly on a stick or pee into a cup that you dip a stick into, then wait a nail-biting few minutes for your results. With all pregnancy tests, its important to follow the directions exactly to make sure you get the most accurate read.
Although home pregnancy tests work the same way, their features can differ. There are a few main types of pregnancy tests you might want to consider:
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Docalon Early Pregnancy Test
Docalon is designed to detect the slightest hint of any pregnancy hormone for enhanced accuracy on the test results. It is suggested to be used at any time of the day from the day of your expected period. For in-vitro diagnostic use, each box contains two bags and desiccants thereby dont opt for freezing the tests in the refrigerator. Feel free to check em exclusively on Amazon!
What We Like
- Early results guaranteed at an incredible price
Our Verdict
This test sure is affordable & accurate! Ideally, two packs should be enough to conveniently double check ensuring telling the results early is still a possibility. Reading the instructions & determining the result is quite simple. It is always advisable to use this product first thing in the morning for the most accurate results. Make sure you adopt the cup method for a reliable test result.
