When buying a pregnancy kit, the most important aspect that you could be thinking about is the pregnancy test sensitivity.
This refers to the ability of the test to accurately detect a pregnancy even at early stages.
What is hCG regarding the sensitivity of the pregnancy test?
This hormone is also known as human chorionic gonadotropin. It is a pregnancy hormone which is released by your placenta after the implantation of the fertilized egg. This is the hormone that is measured by the tests and based on the hormone levels you will get a positive or negative result.
Do the hormone levels matter?
If we are talking about the accuracy of the pregnancy test you should know that the hCG levels do mater. The main point is for the pregnancy tests to detect the lowest levels of hormone so that women will be able to start testing earlier. At this moment the sensitivity of the tests is usually of 20 mIU.
How accurate is the pregnancy test sensitivity on the first day of a missed period?
According to official information on the first day of the first missed period the accuracy of the tests is of 90% since the remaining 10% of women didn’t go through implantation yet. The specialists say that the highest accuracy that can be achieved is of 97%.
Ovulation
If you link the pregnancy test accuracy to ovulation you should know that you can use the most sensitive tests starting 7 days after ovulation. In order to use the test it is a must for implantation to take place. This occurs 6-12 days after ovulation, usually after 10 days. This is why it is common to wait 10-12 days after ovulation.
Even in this case the pregnancy test sensitivity is quite low and you might have a negative result although you might be pregnant. In case you didn’t get an hCG injection you shouldn’t have a false positive result, however it is still possible. You should test again if your period doesn’t come.
Early testing
When talking about the sensitiveness of the pregnancy test it is good to know that since implantation usually takes 6-12 days to happen, it is always possible that you start testing too soon. Some of the manufacturers claim that you can use the tests up to 4 days prior to your next menstrual period.
This means regarding the pregnancy test sensitivity that you can start testing 5 days sooner than the first missed period. This is because the levels of the pregnancy hormones increase very fast. Nonetheless usually you have to wait until the first missed period.
How to make use of the pregnancy test sensitiveness?
In order to perform the test correctly you should put the test in midstream urine. This means that you have to pee a bit first and then place the test in urine. You could also collect urine into a cup.
If you are interested, there is a lot of information available regarding pregnancy test sensitivity for you to know.
