When is the best time to take a pregnancy test? A lot of women have asked themselves that same very question. For many women, the decision of when to take a pregnancy test can be a major source of anxiety. However, if we put the anxiety to the side… When is the best time to take a pregnancy test?
Well, there are several answers to the question. When is the best time to take a pregnancy test. Just scroll down and pay attention, and you’ll find out when is the best time to take a pregnancy test.
What is a pregnancy test anyway?
The minute you become pregnant, your fetus produces a hormone called hCG, or, human Chorionic Gondotrophin. Pregnancy tests measure the levels of this hormone in your urine and are generally able to detect whether you’re pregnant or not.
Often, the hormone won’t be detected the minute you fall pregnant, and it can take anyway between seven and 10 days from successful implantation until the hCG hormone is detectable in urine.
Most home pregnancy tests have you either collect your urine in a cup and dip the stick into your urine or place the stick in your urine midstream. Some even have you collect urine and insert it into a well on the stick with an eye dropper.
You then have to lay the test on a flat surface and wait for a designated period (usually between 3-5 minutes). After this time, you will look for a change in color, a line, or a symbol that will indicate if you are indeed pregnant or not.
The Best Time During Your Cycle
When Is The Best Time To Take A Pregnancy Test? Well, the best time to take a pregnancy test is after your period is late. This will help you avoid false negatives and the false positives of very early miscarriages. If you’re not already keeping a fertility calendar, proper pregnancy test timing is a good reason to start one.
If your cycles are irregular or you don’t chart your cycles, don’t take a test until you’ve passed the longest menstrual cycle you usually have. For example, if your cycles range from 30 to 36 days, the best time to take a test would be day 37 or later.
Keep in mind that your period can sometimes be delayed or skipped due to stress, diet, exercise, or certain medical conditions.
If you don’t want to wait until you’ve missed your period, you should wait at least one to two weeks after you had sex. If you are pregnant, your body needs time to develop detectable levels of HCG. This typically takes seven to 12 days after successful implantation of an egg. So, that should give you a rough estimation on when is the best time to take A pregnancy test.
The Best Time of Day
When is the best time to take A pregnancy test during the day? The time of day you take a pregnancy test does matter to a certain extent. You’re more likely to get an accurate result if you take the test in the morning. Unless you get up in the night to pee often (or you drink water throughout the night), your urine is more concentrated when you first wake up. This usually means that the amount of hCG is a bit higher, and you’re more likely to get a positive result if you’re pregnant.
Urine dilution also occurs. Drinking tea, coffee and virtually every other beverage will dilute the urine in the body. So, it’s not optimal to take the test at night simply because there are too many variables that can cause the test to be negative when a woman is really pregnant.
While a person sleeps, urine will fill the bladder. For a woman that’s pregnant, hormones will fill the bladder and be easily detected on a test. This is the only difference between a morning and night test; the body is allowed to accumulate undiluted urine to be tested.
When Your “Feel” Pregnant
When is the best time to take a pregnancy test? You may decide to take a pregnancy test because you’re having early pregnancy symptoms, including:
Breast tenderness
Mild cramps (sometimes called “implantation cramps”)
Very light spotting (sometimes called “implantation spotting”)
Fatigue
Sensitivity to smells
Slight morning nausea
What about a false positive and false negative pregnancy test results?
What causes a false positive pregnancy test?
Your LH Peak. Sometimes, hCG can be released from the pituitary at the time of your LH-peak. If you take a pregnancy test during this time, there’s a small chance of a false positive.
Chemical pregnancy. A high proportion of early pregnancies are miscarried even before the day of your period. Taking a test too early could detect a very early pregnancy that is not viable. Technically, this is not a false positive, because you really were pregnant.
Perimenopause. Perimenopausal women have somewhat elevated levels of circulating hCG, even when they’re not pregnant. This could lead to a false positive result.
Infertility treatment. Women undergoing hCG treatment (A.P.L, Pregnyl, Profasi, Pergonal) to stimulate ovulation may also receive false positive results if they test within 10 days of their last injection.
What causes a false negative pregnancy test?
Testing too early. In very early pregnancy, not all women produce enough hCG for the test to pick up.
Using a test that is not sensitive enough. If you are testing early, you need to use a more sensitive test.
Diluted urine. If you drink a large amount of liquid shortly before testing, your urine volume may increase so much that hCG is too dilute to measure.
What About the Accuracy Of The Pregnancy Tests?
In addition to knowing the best time of day to take a pregnancy test, remember that your accuracy of the test depends upon following the directions perfectly, when you ovulate, testing on the right days, and how sensitive the test is. Remember that when used correctly, urine tests are about 99% accurate.
Keep in mind that if a urine test shows positive, you will need to have it confirmed with a blood test through your doctor’s office. If you get a negative pregnancy test but you are having all the symptoms of pregnancy, a blood test might also come in handy to rule out problems.
When Will I Ovulate?
In order to know when you ovulate, you must know how long your menstrual cycle is. The average cycle lasts about 28 days but of course, there’s a wide range of normal (anywhere from 23 to 35 days), so you can find out how long your cycle is by counting from the first day of one period to the first day of the next period.
Most women with regular periods ovulate sometime between the 11th and 16th day of their cycle. That means they may ovulate anywhere between 11 to 16 days after their last period started.
Is a Blood Test Quicker And Much Accurate Solution?
Blood tests also work by detecting the hcG hormone but can detect a pregnancy much sooner (about 7-12 days from conception) than a urine test. A blood test should give you the same result no matter what time of day, but they are expensive, have to be done at a doctor’s office, and take longer to get results back.
Pregnancy Tests For Women With Irregular Periods
A regular period is defined as a 25 – 31 day cycle from the start of one period to the next, with three to five days of bleeding. Irregular periods are considered anything that diverges from a woman’s regular menstrual cycle. However, it is worth noting that what is normal for one woman may be abnormal for another. Early signs of pregnancy can differ for every woman, as do those of severe PMS. Therefore, keep in mind that experiencing the following symptoms does not necessarily mean a woman is pregnant – they can occur from other causes, such as stress or switching birth control. The quickest way to be sure is to take a simple pregnancy test or a blood test.
However, if it’s too soon for a home pregnancy test to be reliable, or if you are looking for peace of mind until your doctor’s appointment. Hope you enjoyed our post on the best time to take A pregnancy test.