Can Blood Tests For Pregnancy Be Wrong?
As a general rule, blood tests for pregnancy are more reliable than urine or home pregnancy tests. But they can be wrong. That means, they can show false negative or false positive results in some women. To understand why this can happen, let us understand what blood pregnancy tests are, how they work and what do their results mean.
Blood Pregnancy Tests
A pregnancy blood test or a pregnancy serum test is a test that measures the exact amount of the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), in the bloodstream.
Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone that is produced by the placenta of a pregnant woman. It is detectable in the blood and urine within 10 days of fertilization. There are two types of blood pregnancy tests, namely, quantitative blood test which measures the exact amount of hCG in the blood and qualitative hCG blood test which gives a simple yes or no answer to whether you are pregnant or not.
Blood tests can detect a pregnancy earlier than a home pregnancy test (about 7-12 days from possible conception) and can also measure the concentration of hCG hormone in your blood (this is useful information for your healthcare provider in tracking certain problems in pregnancy). If you suspect any symptoms of pregnancy like delayed menstrual period, breast tenderness, pelvic pain, irregular spotting or vomiting. You must get a pregnancy blood test done to confirm or rule out pregnancy.
What do the pregnancy blood test results mean?
A healthy pregnancy is expected to show a normal pattern of HCG levels over time. In a pregnant woman the level of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) increases throughout the first trimester, then gradually decreases over time. In the first trimester, a woman may have this test done repeatedly to see if the level rises normally. If it doesn’t, the pregnancy is often considered in trouble. After childbirth, miscarriage, or abortion, the level should quickly decrease to zero.
Wrong results with blood pregnancy tests
The test may fail to detect human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) even when a woman is pregnant if the test is done too early. It takes at least 7 days after fertilization for the test to become positive. In most cases, by the time a woman has missed her period, the test will be positive if she is pregnant.