Early Pregnancy Tests

A woman who wants desperately to become pregnant does not want to wait a good 4 weeks or more before seeking confirmation of a probable pregnancy. Such a woman appreciates the availability of early pregnancy tests. She relishes her ability to confirm or refute her probable pregnancy as early as 7 to 8 days after her ovulation. Ovulation is determined by a special test, and the lack of extensive information appropriate early pregnancy tests can impede a couple’s push for quick and easy achievement of conception. Women who are taking fertility drugs might need to look askance at accuracy claims in the pregnancy test kits.

Although women of the 1980s hailed the appearance of early pregnancy tests, they failed to realize the degree to which society lacked sufficient preparation for such tests. In fact, society then lacked preparation for any type of pregnancy test. Society did not then have a total grasp of how to avoid genetic damage to a growing fetus.

During the 1970s researchers at the Houston Medical Center had sought to link air pollutants to genetic damage. They had focused on the chemicals in cigarette smoke, and their research received minimal notice. Not until thirty years later did researchers in New York manage to prove that air pollution could cause genetic damage to a growing fetus.

The information released by those researchers managed to obtain a limited presence in the general media. As a result, some of the women who had purchased one of the early pregnancy tests could have read about those findings. If those women got a positive result from their early pregnancy tests, then one hopes that they stayed clear of areas known to have many air pollutants.

Fortunately, the women who were most apt to experience accurate results from an early pregnancy test were also those who were most apt to read any news about dangerous air pollutants. In fact, if a woman were to ask “How reliable are early pregnancy tests?” she might be told, “It depends on how well the woman is taking the test has read the directions.”

The women who use early pregnancy tests should also seek to understand the sensitivity of those tests. The most sensitive tests can pick-up evidence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the blood as early as 7 to 8 days after ovulation. Those tests can detect as little as 2mI of hCG in a ml of blood. Less sensitive tests can not detect hCG in the blood until 10 to 11 days after ovulation.

Not every woman who has rejoiced over a positive reading on from an early pregnancy test has seen that pregnancy go to term. By the same token, not every woman who had negative results from an early pregnancy test has needed to walk wistfully past racks of baby clothes. Sometimes a woman with a low hCG level can have a normal pregnancy.

A woman on fertility drugs should pay particular attention to the directions that come with all early pregnancy tests. Such tests should offer instructions concerning the effects of medication. Such instructions should make it clear that ingestion of synthetic hCG, such as that used in a fertility drug, will remain in the blood for 14 days. That fact could underline the need for women on fertility drugs to exercise patience before taking an early pregnancy test.