Written By: Longjam Dineshwori | Updated : March 12, 2020 5:02 PM IST
At-home pregnancy tests, which you can purchase from any grocery store, drugstore, or even online, are claimed to be about 99 percent accurate.
Feeling some early pregnancy symptoms and you want to confirm it? Before you visit a doctor, you can take the test at home. In ancient times, when there were no pregnancy strips and kits, women used to rely on various means to test their pregnancy. Even today, many women prefer to get their pregnancy test done at home than visit a clinic to confirm the good news. Here are some common methods women use to test pregnancy at home and their accuracy rate
Proponents believe that this cheap DIY pregnancy test works by detecting the pregnancy hormone in urine.
How to do it- Squeeze a generous amount of regular toothpaste (white paste), into an empty container. Now pour YOUR urine sample into the container. According to the proponents, the toothpaste will either change colour or fizz if you're pregnant. This supposedly occurs in response to the pregnancy hormone or human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).
However, experts say a toothpaste pregnancy test isn't accurate, and is it not a reliable way to confirm a pregnancy. They any reaction that comes from the combination of toothpaste and urine is most likely due to the acidic nature of urine and not due to any pregnancy hormone in urine.
All you need to do is mix you morning urine sample and a pinch or two of salt in a clean bowl. Proponents of the test claim that if you're pregnant, the salt will react with the pregnancy hormone and form creamy white clumps in a few minutes.
As there's no evidence backing up that theory, this DIY pregnancy test is not accurate at all.
It is also one of the DIY pregnancy tests that have gained popularity on the internet. But is it reliable?
How to do it - Put a couple spoonfuls of sugar into a clean bowl. Then pour your first morning urine sample in it. Wait a few minutes. Advocates of this test say the sugar will clump, if you're pregnant. They claim that pee from a nonpregnant person will simply dissolve the sugar. Like other popular DIY tests, there is also no scientific backing for this test.
Experts say the composition of your urine can differ on any given day. And it may be something else that's preventing the sugar from dissolving, not the pregnancy hormone.
There are several ways to accurately test for pregnancy at home. At-home pregnancy tests, which you can purchase from any grocery store, drugstore, or even online, are claimed to be about 99 percent accurate.
But they can sometimes show a false positive or a false negative result if you take the pregnancy test too early, or if your urine is too diluted. Therefore, it is recommended to hold off testing until at least 1 week after a missed period. And the result is more reliable if you take the pregnancy test first thing in the morning. This is because your urine appears to have the highest level of the pregnancy hormone in the morning.
