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At-Home Pregnancy Tests
The type of test you take at home is designed to detect h-CG in your urine. While many at-home pregnancy tests are as much as 99 percent effective when taking using your first urine of the morning on the first day of your missed period, it's not always possible for all women to get an accurate result on a home test.
The reason for this is the rapid pace at which your h-CG levels double or triple in your body. While most women find that their levels double to triple every 48 to 72 hours, there are women whose levels simply do not rise this quickly. What that means is that even with a missed period and pregnancy symptoms, those women might not be able to get a positive result as quickly as they'd like. Since the health of you and your unborn child depend so heavily on knowing you're pregnant so that you can care for your bodies, you want an answer as soon as possible.
Another piece of information about home tests is that they can easily be used incorrectly, causing you to get an incorrect result. However, they're easy to use at home, easy to read and pretty popular with the hoping-to-be pregnant crowd.
Hospital Pregnancy Tests
A blood pregnancy test is a no-fail test to tell you whether or not you're expecting. Rather than testing your urine for h-CG levels, a hospital test is designed to test your blood. When testing your blood, your results cannot be mistaken. There is no need to check a test for a faint line or wonder if that's a faint line you see there or just your desperate hope for pregnancy.
When you take a blood test, your doctor can tell you as soon as your results come back whether or not you are expecting a child.
Advantages and Disadvantages
There are both positives and negatives associated with home and doctor's tests. Home tests, when used correctly, will give you almost instantaneous confirmation of your pregnancy. When you use a hospital pregnancy test, it can take as long as a week before you find out whether or not you are expecting.
Home tests are often less expensive, unless you have great insurance no co-pay at the doctor or hospital. However, the advantage of using a hospital pregnancy test in lieu of an at-home test is the fact that it is being administered by a professional, rather than by you. This is not to say you aren't an intelligent woman who is clearly capable of performing a urine pregnancy test. This is to say that it's easy to confuse aspects of home tests. For example, if you've taken a different type of home test in the past, you might forget that each test is different and that the instructions you followed with that last test are different than the instructions for this test. This could lead to an inaccurate result.
When you use a hospital pregnancy test, you are getting a clear answer every time. When you use a home test, you might have to wait longer to get the result you want. You might confuse the results and not read them correctly. See, many women don't see a dark line on a test and assume they are not pregnant. However, even the faintest of lines indicates pregnancy. You might not see it right away, but if it's there and you don't, you might assume you're not pregnant and you might not take proper care of yourself as soon as you should.
Deciding which type of test to take is a personal decision. There are some women who simply are not happy until they've been to the doctor to confirm pregnancy with a blood pregnancy test. There are others who see a line on their at-home test and immediately know they're pregnant without feeling any need whatsoever to visit a doctor.
It is important to know, however, that you will very likely receive a test at your doctor's office during your first visit, even if you've confirmed pregnancy with your at-home test. This is a standard procedure in almost all doctor's offices.
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