The sensitivity of a pregnancy test matters more than almost any other aspect of the test. Many women are willing to pay whatever it costs to find out as early as possible if she is expecting a baby. Pregnancy tests are most accurate when they are used one week after you miss your period. However, if you use the test the day of your missed period, you have a good chance at an accurate result. This leaves many women wondering what it means when a test is sensitive, how sensitive it needs to be, and which one is the most sensitive of all.
Sensitivity is important because it is what determines the amount of the pregnancy hormone hCG is in your urine. This pregnancy hormone comes in many different levels. Anything over 5 mIU/ml is considered pregnant. However, most tests do not pick up that small amount of hCG. Standard pregnancy tests are designed to detect hCG when it reaches levels of around 20 to 25 mIU/ml. Since it takes approximately 48 to 72 hours for hCG levels to double, many of these tests do not work right away to detect pregnancy.
This is the part that confuses many women. The pregnancy hormone does not appear the second that your egg is fertilized. In fact, it doesn’t even appear a few days later. It takes your fertilized egg approximately one week to make its way through your fallopian tubes and into your uterus. Once it is inside your uterus, the egg implants onto the wall of your uterus. Once it implants, it begins to produce hCG. However, it can take days for the hCG to reach a level that is detectable by an at-home pregnancy test. Remember, 5 mIU/ml is considered the lowest number for pregnancy, and it takes hCG two to three days to double. If your egg implants on a Monday and your hCG level is 1 mIU/ml on Monday, it won’t reach 2 mIU/ml until either Wednesday or Thursday, which means it won’t reach 4 mIU/ml until Sunday or Monday. Now you’re a week past implantation and you still don’t have hCG levels high enough to detect on even the most sensitive pregnancy test.
Medical professionals and pregnant women have done a lot of research on this subject. Right now, the most sensitive pregnancy test on the market is the First Response Digital Pregnancy Test.
It can detect the hCG levels in your body as many as six days early. Studies confirm that this test can detect hCG levels when they are as low as 6.5 mIU/ml. Of course, whether or not you will get a positive result six days early depends entirely on when you ovulated, how long it took your egg to reach and implant in your uterus, and how fast your body produces hCG.
When you take the First Response test, you are going to get a more accurate result earlier than any other test. However, a negative result six days early is not necessarily a bad thing. You might be pregnant, you just took the test too early. Before you take the test, be sure to read the instructions. This test is like any other. However, if you do not hold the absorbent tip of the First Response test in your urine long enough, it might not register accurate results.
Once you’ve taken the test and waited the amount of time you were instructed in the package, you can look at the test. If you are pregnant, you will see the world pregnant in the digital display. If you are not pregnant, you will see the words not pregnant in the digital display. If you do not see anything, your test is broken and you need to try another test.
Many at-home pregnancy tests are sensitive enough to detect your pregnancy long before your missed period. However, the First Response at-home pregnancy test is the only one that can detect the hCG in your body at levels as low as 6.5 mIU/ml. It is also the only test that works six days early. Other tests work as early as five days, but they don’t detect hCG levels this low. The First Response digital test is the most sensitive pregnancy test.
The First Response pregnancy test is 99 percent accurate, but only if you use it the day you miss your period. Before that, the accuracy is lower. Six days before your missed period it is approximately 50 percent, but it gets higher each day after that.