When is a Pregnancy Test Reliable?

Pregnancy is the first delay in menstruation. We should not hesitate to take a pregnancy test to confirm our suspicions. But to what extent is a pregnancy test reliable? And above all, when is the result of such a test more reliable?

A pregnancy test detects the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin in the urine, commonly known as HCG. This hormone is the queen hormone of pregnancy. This hormone is present in blood and urine from just a few days after implantation.

Regardless of its brand or format, the reliability of this test is usually around 98 or 99%. These figures often lead to misinterpretation. A negative result gives us an answer that we are not pregnant.

This reliability represents the percentage of success only when the result is positive. A reliability percentage of 99%, means that you are probably pregnant.

When is it Reliable to Perform a Pregnancy Test?

Here is the crux of the matter, since it is not so important that 99% reliability of a pregnancy test, the time is important.

If we do this test prematurely, the reliability of a correct result is practically nil, it is not reliable to do a pregnancy test on the same day that sexual intercourse occurred because even though we are ovulating and a sperm fecundates the ovum, there will be no enough hCG hormone in our body to make the pregnancy test reliable .

The sensitivity of this test that we choose is also important. This sensitivity usually between 10mUI / ml and 50mUI / ml. So despite being pregnant, our pregnancy hormone might not reach these levels, the result will not be reliable either.

It is very important to know when the possible fertilization occurred and when the exact day of our fault to have total reliability in a pregnancy test

From then on, the best option would always be to choose an ultra-sensitive abdomen test.  The reliability in this ultra-sensitive abdomen test being positive is practically the same in all the tests. But evidently, it is more likely that a positive test sensitivity 10 than a sensitivity test 50.

This makes ultrasensitive tests more reliable pregnancy tests when determining pregnancy in advance.

Schedule to Make a Reliable Pregnancy Test?

I recommend you to take a pregnancy test in the morning with the first urine or in the evening – a night for the best results.  This recommendation increases the reliability of this test.