Things That Can Cause a False-Positive Pregnancy Test

You are sexually active or have been for a while now, but now all of a sudden your period is late and you are freaking out about whether or not you have become pregnant.

You get yourself one of those home pregnancy tests where you pee in a stick and wait for a few minutes before it tells you if you have a bun in the oven, and it tells that you do. But you had taken protection, so how can this happen?

Well, before you jump into conclusions, visit a OB-GYN and find out what the real issue is, because sometimes certain things can cause you to get a false-positive pregnancy test.

If you are wondering what those are and if you have any of them, please keep reading.

The Pregnancy Kit Is Expired

Just like any other medicine that you would get from the pharmacy, even pregnancy kits come with an expiration date.

If the kit that you got is past its shelf life, then the chemical in it that detects hCG (the hormone that your body creates when you are pregnant) doesn’t always work as it should and you end up with a misread.

If the test kit is expired then the chances of getting a false positive results are higher.

User Error

These at home pregnancy tests are 99% of the time accurate, but if it is used exactly as the instructions tell you to. One of the most common mistakes people do when using this test is they take it too early in their cycle, which can cause a false-positive or even a false-negative result to show.

It is also important that you take the test when your urine is not too diluted with water, and is very concentrated, like when you first wake up in the morning. Also, it is important to ensure that you do not keep the dip stick in the pee for too long and check the result during the time frame that the instructions in the pack tell you to.

Recent Abortion Or Miscarriage

If you have recently gotten an abortion or had a miscarriage, then you will continue to get a false-positive pregnancy test for some time.

This is because, when you are pregnant the hCG levels in your body keep increasing and then once the pregnancy ends, it takes your body a certain amount of time to get back to normal. It is a slow process and the body takes around 6 weeks, so perhaps that is what caused the false-positive.

Medication

If you are trying to conceive and are taking medication for it, like fertility drugs that contain HCG or maybe are taking injections that are often a part of the in-vitro fertilization process, you can get a false-positive if you take the pregnancy test too soon. This can give you false hope, especially since you are consciously trying to conceive a child, therefore gynaecologists always mention to take the test after a designated amount of time, so that you get an accurate result and not a false one.

What to do next?

Whether you were hoping to get a positive on your test or not, the first thing that you should do after you have taken this test is visit your doctor to know what the real situation is. They usually ask you to take a blood test to find out your hCG levels after which, they can move ahead with their diagnosis.

However, false positives do happen sometimes and are in no way an indication that you will never be pregnant again or something worse.