Pregnancy Lounge

Tag: hcg

  • Pregnant Week 5

    Pregnant Week 5

    In your pregnancy, you are now in week 5. Your baby is now called an embryo and is about 1/16 of an inch long. All of your baby’s major organs are under development now. The neural tube, which will later be referred to as the spinal cord, will fuse baby’s primitive heart has begun to take shape, with the heart tubes beginning to fuse together and your baby’s heart will start early contractions, which later become distinct beats.

    By the end of this week, it may be possible to detect your baby on an ultrasound, since the sac is now visible, although ultrasounds are not done routinely this early in pregnancy.

    Your period is late now and you are probably beginning to suspect that you’re pregnant. If you have taken a home pregnancy test, you most likely have already gotten a positive result. Some women don’t have a positive until a week or more down the road, so don’t be disappointed if your result was negative.

    If your period hasn’t shown up within a few days, then you should re-test, because your Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) levels rise as your pregnancy progresses and become easier for home pregnancy tests to detect.

    You may feel sick to your stomach and begin vomiting, as the dreaded “morning sickness” kicks in. Usually this happens only in the morning (or is worse earlier in the day), but some women have to deal with it the entire day and even into the night.

    On the positive side, recent studies have shown that morning sickness can be a sign of a healthy pregnancy. But, if you feel fine, don’t worry, just count yourself as one of the fortunate few who don’t have to deal with this miserable pregnancy symptom.

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  • Pregnancy Tests

    Pregnancy Tests

    Most at home early pregnancy tests allow you to read the result as soon as 2-3 minutes after taking the test, but many have time limits- meaning not to read the result after a specified length of time. The accuracy of home pregnancy tests depends on how closely you follow the instructions. If you do a home pregnancy test four to seven days after your missed period, it will be positive 95 percent of the time (assuming you are pregnant).

    How an Early Pregnancy Test Works

    About four days after conception, the fertilized egg begins to produce a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (or hCG for short). One of the first tasks of this hormone is to notify the ovaries that you are pregnant and no more ovulations are needed for a long time. The signal also directs the ovary to help retain the endometrium (the uterine lining) and prevent your menstrual period, which would expel the newly-attached embryo from your uterus.

    Human chorionic gonadutropin (hCG) can be detected first in your blood and shortly thereafter in your urine. Most tests can tell you if you’re pregnant as early as the first day of your missed period (about 14 days after conception) or even earlier. The tests were created to detect the presence of hCG in your urine. If there is hCG detected in your urine, it reacts with the chemicals on the test strip to create a “+” sign or a second line in the result window (depending on what brand of test you use). Remember, whether the makers of the test claim you can take the test any time of the day, first- morning urine always contains the highest concentration of hCG.

    The major drawback with home pregnancy tests is that when done in the early days of pregnancy, sometimes it will indicate you’re not pregnant, when in fact you are. This can occur because levels of hCG are low in early pregnancy and can go undetected. For this reason, test results that indicate you are not pregnant are more often wrong than test results that indicate you are pregnant.

    Home pregnancy tests are not designed to take the place of a consultation with your doctor. They should be considered screening tests only. If your test result is negative, but your period is late and you have symptoms of pregnancy, consult your health care provider. If your result is positive, make an appointment with your doctor for confirmation and a complete prenatal check-up.

    Blood pregnancy tests are very accurate and can detect the presence of hCG as early as one week after conception. They can also be helpful in determining how far along you are by measuring the exact amount of hCG in your blood, since the levels tend to double about every two days in early pregnancy.