Pregnancy Tests

Pregnancy test helps ascertain whether a woman is pregnant or not. Pregnancy can be chemically traced out through urine and blood. With the advent of pregnancy, urine and blood begin to show marked change in their concentration as well as their composition. Hence a battery of tests aligned to finding such changes in the composition of blood and urine can help with the successful diagnosis of pregnancy.

HcG or Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin can help with detecting pregnancy, it is a hormone produced in the placenta which undergoes a radical change with the advent of pregnancy. The only drawback is that it can diagnose pregnancy only after implantation. This is why if the tests are performed during the early phases of pregnancy, the tests give false negative results.

Obstetric ultrasonography can also help with detecting pregnancy.

Post-fertilization, the fastest way to judge pregnancy is Rosette Inhibition Assay. Such early pregnancy factor can be found out in blood merely 2 days after fertilization. The process is a little time-taking though. Chemical tests that are largely carried out look for beta subunits of HcG in blood or urine.

The home pregnancy tests deal with pregnancy kits. These are tests which are routinely carried by women these days and help in detecting even early stage pregnancy. Other home pregnancy tests are based on lateral-flow technology. They use lateral flow Immunochromatographic assays to diagnose the presence of a target analyte in a matrix.

Most of the tests can show negative results if done too early. When the tests are done keeping the evolution pattern in mind, they show better results. With a late menstrual period, chances of false negatives lessen.

There are also varied reasons for false positives. Typical reasons include erroneous implementation of tests, utilization of drugs containing the assay molecule and non-pregnant harboring of the assay molecule.