Which is the best home pregnancy test?

Most woman want to be sure that they pick the best pregnancy test available - after all, this is not the time when you want to make a mistake through using a sub-standard product!

The factors that make for the best pregnancy tests are as follows:

• Accuracy - in New Zealand the Ministry of Health (www.medsafe.govt.nz) ensures that all test kits meet the requirement of being at least 99% accurate. You can therefore be assured that any test kit you buy will be highly reliable.
  

• Speed - when you are worried or excited about a pregnancy test result, you want the answer quickly! All the test kits on the New Zealand market will give you the result within 1 to 2 minutes of taking the test.
  

• Ease of use - all of the modern test kits are very easy to use. The midstream urine ones are particularly easy, and in fact are known as easy to use pregnancy tests (EPTs). They have clear instructions, and most use a very simple "line" system that gives you a definitive negative or positive result.
  

• Cost - if you want to keep the costs down then it is best to buy your test kit online or from a supermarket - prices at pharmacies are much more expensive. Our research has uncovered some particularly cheap kits at Pak n Save - see the section above on Costs.
  

• Early use - probably the most important factor for many women is "how early can you use the test"? The kits on the market these days are known as early pregnancy test kits. This is because they can be used as soon as your period is due, or in some cases 4 days prior. The key factor here is how much hCG they can detect. Most kits in New Zealand can detect 25 mIu/mL, but at the time of writing there is one kit that can detect a pregnancy at only 15 mIu/mL of hCG - this brand is called Discover and is effective from up to four days before your period is due.