When Can I Take A Pregnancy Test after TTC?

When Can I Take A Pregnancy Test after Trying to Conceive?

When you are trying to conceive a baby girl or boy, the wait between the time you have sex and the time you get to find out for sure whether or not you are pregnant can seem like an eternity. But, when is the right time to take a pregnancy test? Today we are going to find out for sure. Claim Your 20 Free Pregnancy Tests – Click Here

When should you test?

There is a big difference between when you should take a pregnancy test and when you are able to take a pregnancy test. For the most accurate results, you should wait to take a pregnancy test until you have missed your period. If you wait until you have missed your period, you are almost certain to get a positive result. However, waiting until you miss a period to take a pregnancy test is easier said than done.

When can you test?

Technically, you can take a pregnancy test at any time after you have sex, but that doesn’t mean that the results are going to be accurate. The reason that you won’t get accurate results if you test too soon is because your body has to have time to build up your levels of hCG in your system if you are pregnant. If you test too soon, there will not be enough hCG in your system to be detected, and you will not get an accurate result.

Your hCG levels

hCG is the pregnancy hormone that home pregnancy tests detect in your urine. hCG is comprised from the cells that make up the placenta. You only have hCG in your body when you are pregnant. That is why it is so easy for home pregnancy tests to tell you if you are pregnant or not. No pregnancy, no hCG. However, if you just recently conceived, your body might not have produced enough hCG yet for it to be detected by a home pregnancy test.

What is hCG anyway?

To understand better how exactly a pregnancy tests works, you have to first understand hCG. You see, after your egg is fertilized, it can take up to ten whole days for it to implant in the uterus. This means that it can take up to five days after you conceive for your body to even begin to produce hCG, and even longer for your body to produce the levels of hCG that can be detected by home pregnancy tests. Some tests are more sensitive than others, and can detect hCG sooner, but others are less sensitive and won’t detect hCG at all unless it is very prominent.

Bottom line

The bottom line when it comes to taking a home pregnancy test is that the longer you can wait, the better. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to get an accurate result. Otherwise, you may be faced with false positives, false negatives, or a deceivingly faint line and find the results difficult to interpret. If you must test before your missed period, try to choose a home pregnancy test that is more sensitive. Also, you can always go to your doctor to get a blood pregnancy test done, since those tests can detect hCG at an earlier time than urine tests. Good luck!

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Dr. Renee Hanton, MD
Dr. Renee Hanton, MD | ConceiveEasy
Dr. Renee Hanton is ConceiveEasy's Senior Physician with expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. Dr. Hanton specializes in the endocrine causes of infertility, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

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