It’s important to take a pregnancy test when your period’s late !

         There are many women who use a pregnancy test very often, without having any sign of pregnancy and that’s because some of them are too anxious and excited to find out if they will have a baby, and others because they’re too stressed by this possibility and they want to solve “the problem” as soon as possible. But most women decide to take a pregnancy test when they confront with a missed period, or at least a late one.

         A late period has been thought to be, for a long time, an obvious sign for a pregnancy and that was because there were no other ways to find out the truth. But nowadays things have changed: women have the possibility to find out if their period’s late because of a pregnancy very fast. There are two ways to find out: clinic tests, based on blood, or home pregnancy tests, based on urine. Due to their lower price and that certain intimacy that they can give them, most women chose to take a home pregnancy test.

         Now, if you don’t take a pregnancy test when your period is late, then when? Of course that the test result could be a negative one, and your period could be late because of other reasons like: being in a very stressful period, a sudden low weight or an organic illness. But you can get a negative result as well even if you are pregnant – if you were wondering if that’s possible.. And what could that mean? Well, this is very possible and there are many reasons for that happening.

         First of all, you can get a false negative result if you take the test too early. As you probably know, those tests work by a simple principle: they have to detect the presence of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in a woman’s body. This hormone, (known as the pregnancy hormone), is produced by placenta after a fertilized egg implants in the uterine wall(and this implantation does not occur until 6 days after ovulation). So, before those 6 days, no home pregnancy test could get you an accurate result, because there is not hCG to be detected.

         There are many women got an accurate result 7-12 days after ovulation, but that is not necessarily a rule, because every woman’s organism is different and it acts differently. So, if you want the surest result you should follow the doctors’ recommendation and take the pregnancy test two weeks after ovulation.

         The moment you take the test is not the only possible reason of getting a false negative result. There could be many other reasons like: the low sensitivity of the pregnancy test (it could not be sensitive enough to detect the hCG), urine dilution (if you drink too much water before to take the test, your urine can be diluted and it will not contain the detectable amount of urine) or the test validity (you have to verify the best-before date, because an expired test can give you a false result).

         Another important reason could be the moment you read the test result. It is important to read it within time frame, because, otherwise, you can get what it’s called “evaporation line” and you won’t know which the correct result is.

Related posts:

1. Late period? Pregnancy test is the key
2. Late period – Negative pregnancy test – What now ?
3. Negative pregnancy test – period late – What do I do ?