Are Pregnancy Blood Tests A Hundred Percent Accurate?There are two ways you can get tested for a possible pregnancy. Most women run to the pharmacy and purchase an over-the-counter home pregnancy test kit, which makes use of a urine sample and a few good minutes of waiting. And then there’s the blood test, usually done at a doctor’s clinic or at the laboratory, and is said to be more accurate than those home kits. However, do these blood tests have a margin for error? First, it is true that pregnancy blood tests are more accurate than urine home pregnancy test kits, primarily because of the smaller window for human lapses. However, even blood tests can go wrong. The good side to all this is, if a doctor finds your results questionable, he or she can easily order and perform a new test to confirm the previous results. Blood tests for pregnancy work the same way as urine pregnancy tests do – they both detect hCG levels. What many people do not know is that a questionable positive or negative result could be the result of various things not limited to a pregnancy alone. For instance, human chorionic gonadotropin may be excessively high when a developing fetus has died within the womb. It may also be high if a woman is carrying twins, or has ovarian cancer. Naturally, hCG will be in the blood and urine of a woman with a healthy and normal pregnancy. Abnormally low hCG may be caused by a recent miscarriage, or even an ectopic pregnancy. At times, the reason for an erroneous reading can be something very innocent such as “testing too early”. Doctors may test a woman just to allay her anxiety, but her results will be negative if she is tested before seven to ten days after conception. All in all, blood tests are more accurate than urine tests, but it still depends on the laboratory performing the test, as well as the timing of the procedure in relation to the mother’s last period and sexual contact. Related articles
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