Nothing is as devastating for a hopeful mother-to-be than to see the negative results of a false pregnancy test. Unless, of course, you are one of the very few women who experience a false positive pregnancy test result. It’s not common, but it does happen. A false positive pregnancy test can mean several things.
Before getting into that, it’s imperative that you know what a false positive test is. It is an at-home pregnancy test that tells you that you are pregnant when you are not pregnant.
Unfortunately, it’s often very difficult to know whether or not you are experiencing a false positive pregnancy test result. If you’ve been trying and you see a positive result, you think you are pregnant. Unfortunately, it might be a while before you know you are not pregnant.
What causes false positive tests varies. One of the most common reasons you might receive a false positive test is because of fertility treatments. Many different fertility treatments that help you to increase your chances of becoming pregnant contain a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin, which you very likely know as hCG. This is the pregnancy hormone. This is the hormone at-home pregnancy tests are designed to detect in your urine, providing you with a positive result on your pregnancy test.
If you are taking fertility treatments and your doctor advises you to stay away from at-home pregnancy tests, do as you are instructed or you might experience the heartbreak that goes along with thinking you are pregnant when you really are not. Another common mistake is reading the results too long after the recommended time frame. When you do this, you might notice a second line. This does not indicate pregnancy. It is called an evaporation line and it is the cause of many women believing they are pregnant when they are not.
If you receive a false positive test result before you miss your period, it’s an unfortunate occurrence. It’s unfortunate since you have not yet missed your period, you are going to continue to think that you are pregnant. This is going to get your hopes up, cause you excitement and happiness and it might even cause you to begin telling people that you are pregnant when, in fact, you are not.
It’s nearly impossible tell you are not pregnant right away. The first indication that your test result might be wrong is the arrival of your period. However, since many pregnancy tests work up to a week prior to your missed period, you might continue thinking you are pregnant for a full week before you start to doubt the results of your test.
If you are not taking fertility treatments, you might want to take a second at-home pregnancy test. The best advice is to take a brand new test, not one that came in the same box as the one sporting the false positive
Since you don’t know yet that this is a false positive, it might ease your mind to take a second test and confirm pregnancy or see a doubtful negative. When this happens, it might encourage you to seek medical advice faster. Unfortunately, some tests are not used accurately, others are expired, and some women actually read the instructions incorrectly, causing them to receive what they think is a positive result on an otherwise negative pregnancy test.
To avoid this occurrence, it’s best to wait until the day your period is scheduled to arrive before taking an at-home pregnancy test. If your period arrives, it might deter you from taking the test and becoming excited about something that isn’t going to happen just yet.
If you start your period but you still see a positive result on your pregnancy test, there could be a few explanations for this. All women have some level of the pregnancy hormone in their body at all times. That level has to be higher than 5 mIU to be considered pregnant. However, in some very rare cases, an at-home pregnancy test might mistakenly detect a faint amount of hCG right at the level 5 mIU and tell you that you are expecting a child when you are not.
If you are on your period and you still see that you are pregnant according to your at-home tests, you might want to call your doctor. This could indicate chemical pregnancy that could harm your body. Chemical pregnancies are not real pregnancies because the baby you think you are carrying never develops in your uterus. Unfortunately, your body does start to produce the pregnancy hormone because you did have a fertilized egg. It simply failed to develop, leaving you with the chemical aspect of a pregnancy without the actual baby.
Another explanation for a false positive pregnancy test when you are on your period is the existence of another medical condition. If this is the case, you will need to call your doctor immediately. Your doctor will begin to test you for these conditions so that he or she may begin to treat you properly as soon as possible. You do not want to let any of these potential medical conditions to go untreated or they can cause even more damage than they are already causing to your body.
The lesson here is to be sure that your pregnancy test is not expired, that you carefully read the instructions and that you try and wait until your period neglects to arrive before you take a test. A positive result with the appearance of your period is going to cause you immediate doubts and encourage you to contact your doctor right away, taking care of any issues that might be occurring within your body.