Most accurate pregnancy tests – Clinic tests or home ones ?

         Pregnancy is very important for any woman, no matter if she wants a baby or not, so it’s normal for her to look out for the most accurate method to find out if she’s pregnant or not. From all the known methods, the most accurate one is the pregnancy test – but as there are two types of them(clinic and home ones), how do you know which of them should you choose?

         ”Which are the most accurate pregnancy tests ?” is a very frequent question, although there is not a big difference between clinic and home tests accuracy levels(clinic ones having an almost 100% accuracy and home ones 98-99%).

         Both types of tests are working by the same principle: detection of the presence and levels of hCG(human Chorionic Gonadotropin) in a woman’s body – hormone which only appears when she gets pregnant. The difference between these tests lies in their way of detecting this presence: clinic tests are using blood and home ones are using urine. As you probably know, any hormone or substance first appears in a person’s blood and only later in its urine – so it’s understandable why the blood tests are more accurate than the other ones – because they can detect a smaller amount of hCG earlier. However, this hCG is produced by the placenta only at least 6 days after ovulation – so it’s useless to take any test before that, because you’d get a negative result no matter what.

         As there is a very small difference between the accuracy levels of the two, women decide which of them to choose considering other important features. The most chosen ones are home tests – first of all because they are cheaper and they offer the possibility to find out the truth in the intimacy of your own home, but also because they are easy to use, easy to read and give fast results.

         As a conclusion, the answer to the question “which are the most accurate pregnancy tests?” is fairly simple – the clinic tests are more accurate, but this doesn’t make much of a difference (since it’s usually only a 1-2 percent statistical difference).