Even in the medical world unusual things happen for no particular reason. One of them is a false “positive” pregnancy test. When a pregnancy test results show “Positive” when actually the woman is not pregnant such mistakes occur. However there are many causes for this mistake.
Too Early Testing:
When conception takes place the woman’s body produces the hormone called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin known in short as HCG and the presence of this hormone is an indication of pregnancy. However for some women the hormone production will be low and a pregnancy test done too early will not detect this hormone and they will get a negative result which would be wrong.
Similarly sometimes this hormone HCG can be produced in the body by other tissues and not by the placenta. In such cases the test will show a false “Positive” result indicating that a woman is pregnant when she is not. So it is always better to wait for at least eight to ten days before taking a pregnancy test or else you might wind up getting a false “positive” pregnancy test.
Remember to take the test with the first urine early in the morning as this will contain maximum level of the hormone HCG as compared to the rest of the day. For making doubly sure you can repeat the test after two days since by then the HCG levels will increase if you are pregnant.
Testing in a haphazard manner: Read the instruction manual thoroughly before performing the home pregnancy test. You are expected to check the results within a specific time period to get an accurate result. So, it is important that you record the time when you have applied the test and check for the outcome within the specified time. Checking before or after the time specified can give you false “positive” pregnancy test or a false negative test result.
Testing line of evaporation: When a positive result comes up in a urine home pregnancy test a colored line in the testing strip is the indication of pregnancy. However this colored line should be checked within the specified time given in the instruction whatever that may be. Otherwise the urine dries and a colored evaporation line shows up which might be wrongly interpreted as a false “positive” pregnancy test. This evaporation line looks similar to the positive result sign for many women due to the composition of their urine. So, either check properly following instructions or recheck again after two days for confirmed results.
Chemical Pregnancy: Very early miscarriages are quite common especially during first pregnancy. This kind of pregnancy is called chemical pregnancy. In such cases if a woman does a home pregnancy test very early, she might get a false “positive” pregnancy test and then undergo a miscarriage without realizing. Hence while home pregnancy test may be done for convenience it is always better to get a confirmation from a lab test at the proper time.
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