Earliest pregnancy test

The History

Women started checking if they were pregnant in Ancienttimes. The ancient Egyptian women used to mix grains of wheat or barley withtheir urine in order to find out if they were pregnant or not. The pregnancywas determined according to the germination of the grains. The ancient Greek alsowas curious when it came to pregnancy. Hippocrates, the well known Greekphysician, advised women to drink the mix of water and honey before going tobed. Those women who developed the cramps due to this action were, according tothis physician, with a child. In the 1970s, these actions evolved into thepregnancy kits which were exclusively supervised by doctors. Only in the latetwentieth century the home pregnancy kits were introduced to the ladies. Today,this method is highly used as the first pregnancy test.

The Earliest Pregnancy Test

The hormone HCG is released into the bloodstream if the implantationof a fertilized egg occurs. After only four days of implantation this hormonecan be detected in the blood. As the blood is filtered by the kidneys HCGbuilds up in the urine as well. So this hormone can be detected in the urineafter only four days. Consequently, the earliest pregnancy test is a sensitiveblood test due to the first exposure of the HCG in the blood rather than theurine. On the other hand, when it comes to the urine test, women seem to like itbetter due to its time, money and pain efficiency over the blood test. Thus it is good to know that the first urinetest can be taken 6 days before the expected menstrual period.

Problems With the Earliest Pregnancy Tests

One should be aware of some problems of the earliestpregnancy tests before one decides to use it. If the implantation occurs latefor you the test may provide false results. Secondly, if you do the test sixdays before the missed menstrual period you should redo the test just to besure. Lastly, you should be aware that the miscarriage rate is approximately 33%during the first few days of pregnancy. Because of this the test should betaken again in a few weeks. Thus the experts suggest to wait until the menstrualperiod fails to occur and only after this happens to use the first pregnancytest due to its expensiveness and ambiguities.

Home Pregnancy Test

Home pregnancy test is the most popular method of determiningwhether you are pregnant or not. These are very easy to be used. However, it isalways suggested for the instructions to be read due to different brand usages.Moreover, it is also very important to be known that the blood tests are themost sensitive tests and thus the most accurate of them all.