Pregnancy Test

Strange subject for a child page
No, not at all. Who wants to be pregnant is usually keen to know as early as possible, whether you have worked or not. This leads not infrequently to the corresponding application errors and disappointments. So here is some info on the function and use of pregnancy tests.

How do pregnancy tests?
A pregnancy test detects the hormone hCG, which is produced from an embryo taken root. The hormone is exclusively produced by a pregnancy. It is possible this hormone in blood and urine.

Urine
The urine tests are less sensitive than a test from the blood as achieved, the concentration of pregnancy hormone in urine, the blood levels only after a lag of two days. Therefore, one can perform a urine test is reasonably well until the day of the absence of rule, that is less than 14 days after ovulation. For only then are the concentrations in the urine is high enough for a reliable test. This is indicated by reputable manufacturers of pregnancy tests out explicitly.

So-called Frühtests or pre-tests are never reliable, and should not be performed if you want to have a reliable result. As the morning urine is more concentrated than the urine during the day (due to fluid intake diluted), for such a test morning urine should be used.

The tests usually consist of a control strip that changes color every time the test is usable (eg not yet expired) and the actual test strip, which reacts specifically to the hCG. Thus if both color strips, then this means that first the test is working and 2 a pregnancy. The result is a yes / no result. The amount of urine contained hCG can not be determined, however, the test strip of the more intense the higher the concentration of the pregnancy hormone is.

Blood test
In this test directly determines the concentration of hCG in the blood. So I can not specify exact levels of the hormone. Theoretically, the evidence from the blood is already quite possible one week after ovulation or the puncture of the egg cells. But at such an early date the statement is too vague, so the earliest reasonable time after ovulation seems to be for such a provision for 12 days. Usually people wait 14-15 days after ovulation. In a test tube fertilization, the calculation refers to the day of puncture, which corresponds to the ovulation.

Other pregnancy signs
Reliable other signs of early pregnancy are not. Only in the late 5th Week of pregnancy (Pregnancy Calendar) can pregnancy be detected by ultrasound. Until then the pregnancy is detected, therefore only through the blood or urine and, therefore, a so-called biochemical pregnancy.

Error

• As hCG and ovulation-inducing hormone (LH) biochemically very similar, it can at the time of LHPeak, so come the rise of this hormone to a positive test. Conversely, one with test strips to Ovulationsnachweis hCG detected in the urine, they should not be exploited as pregnancy tests. They are too unreliable.
• It is often a hormone treatment in the second half of the cycle yet given hCG to trigger ovulation at first, later to support the luteal phase. If the distance is such a hiss and a test injection of short (one week or less), then there is a positive result, even though no pregnancy.

Dilemma of the "hold"
After a fertility treatment one would naturally like to know as early as possible, whether it "worked". Not only after a fertility treatment even among those couples who try naturally (which is often forgotten here in the forum) on hold after ovulation / sex with a lot of patience is to be seen. If, however, so a urine test at a very early stage, then this is either a positive one and ponders whether this is possibly the remains of an hCG injection, or it is negative and it is hoped that it is so due to the early stage .

In a child forum you have very rarely seen women who made a test and then did not start to brood of such. Therefore, there exists the sometimes legitimate view that 'pee tests are stupid. " This is certainly unfair to those tests, as they for the early stage of their deployment so can anything. Here is a table showing the average hCG values (from the blood) in early pregnancy.

HCG table. Normal values in early pregnancy
Time value of normal range

To assess whether the pregnancy is intact, so much the absolute HCG values of significance, but the increase of the hormone. They say most of that was to take place at the beginning of a pregnancy, a doubling of blood every two days.