The moment you discover that you have a menstrual delay, the nervousness takes over. Whether you are looking for a baby or not, you want to know as soon as possible if there has actually been gestation to clarify the picture and organize the situation. But in this case, waiting is important to ensure a reliable result at the time of taking the pregnancy test. If you wonder how much you have to wait to do the pregnancy test, read on as we explain it here.
Why should you wait to take the pregnancy test?
Being clear about how your body works is important in understanding why you should wait to do the pregnancy test. What indicates, both through the urine and through a blood test, that you are pregnant is the presence of a hormone called hCG, it is produced by placenta when gestation occurs to ensure adequate levels of estrogen and progesterone, the key hormones in pregnancy.
This hormone begins to be secreted by your body 15 days after the ovum is fertilized and never before. It means that if you take the pregnancy test before those 15 days have passed, you run the risk of obtaining a false negative, and in pregnancy matters, it is best not to take the risk and be 100% safe and sure.
How much to wait to do the pregnancy test?
The reliability of the pregnancy test will depend not only on having waited for the right time but on how your menstrual cycles are! There are many pregnancy tests that guarantee results from the first day of delay, however, these tests can shed many false negatives because if hCG levels are not high enough, they will not be detected in the test.
For all this the doctors recommends the following;
Do the pregnancy test when you are 7 days late in the case of regular women or women who use hormonal contraceptives, and therefore be clear the date of their next period. After a week of delay, hCG levels will be at the appropriate point to be detected.
If you choose to do the pregnancy test on the first day of delay and it is negative, you must wait for the period to arrive. If it does not arrive, you will have to repeat the pregnancy test at 5 days because it is possible that you have had a false negative.
How soon after sex can I take a pregnancy test?
In the case of women with irregular menstrual cycles, the pregnancy test should be done 18 days after the sexual intercourse at which they believe they may have become pregnant.
Having explained all of the above, it is very clear that the pregnancy test to provide a reliable result must be done properly, so you should never;
Do the pregnancy test on the same day of unprotected sex or the next day.
Perform the test without having a menstrual delay.
Do the test without reading the instructions, as you could get a wrong result.
Although home pregnancy tests can give false negatives, they do not give false positives, except in cases of ectopic pregnancies or embryonic pregnancies, a positive result means that there is an ongoing pregnancy.
