Home pregnancy tests are the most common method used today to confirm that you are pregnant. It is usually a missed period that has a woman rushing to the drug store to buy one of the tests and most of the time the result is correct assuming that you do not make a mistake testing. Home pregnancy tests also vary in sensitivity so you might not be able to test before you have missed your period depending on your body and the brand of test that you are using. Unfortunately, as accurate as home pregnancy tests have become you can get a false positive which can be emotionally devastating if you are trying to get pregnant.

While home pregnancy tests have become more and more reliable its important to remember that there is a small margin of error associated with them. Overall home pregnancy tests are 97% accurate. This sounds like a lot, but that means about 3% of the time they can give either a false positive or a false negative. It doesnt sound so bad until it happens to you! Because there is this margin of error it is unlikely but possible that you can get a false positive result even with one of the best tests on the market.

There are some common causes of false positive pregnancy tests. One of the reasons is a chemical pregnancy, which is an early miscarriage. This is a very early pregnancy that can be detected but is not viable so a woman will have her period as a way to do away with the ill fated pregnancy. Another possible cause of a false positive is waiting too long to read the results. If you way too long to read the test or if you look too early the test is invalid, so be sure to read the directions that come with each pregnancy test to assure you are reading the results at the correct time. There are also some drugs that have hCG in them which can interfere with home pregnancy tests, though this isnt all that common as women on these drugs typically wont attempt a home pregnancy test.

A very common cause of false positives is evaporation lines. Unfortunately the technology behind the home pregnancy test isnt all that sophisticated so as the urine passes over the indicator screen evaporation occurs and makes a line show up when it shouldnt. Some pregnancy tests are better known for this than others. If you are in doubt about the results wait a couple days and see if you get the same results, if you do, chances are you really are pregnant and it wasnt a false positive.

Posted in Trying to Get Pregnant

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