False Positives: Getting Your Hopes Up
Whenever you take a home pregnancy test, you're taking a risk. There's a fifty-fifty chance that either you're about to peer into the future and see yourself surrounded by a happy, loving family, or you're going to be perhaps relieved and disappointed at the same time to learn that this time your period is late for some other, unknown reason. It's an emotional and difficult moment when you look at the results window on that home pregnancy test. It's even more so when you later discover those results were inaccurate, because you're once again put through those grueling moments of waiting, uncertainty, hope, and fear.
No home pregnancy test is 100% accurate. In fact, the average home pregnancy test is only about 75% accurate, due to user error and misinterpretation. It's good to keep this in mind every time you use a home pregnancy test.
Possible Causes
False positive results on a home pregnancy test can happen for numerous reasons. Misuse of the test, medications containing or producing human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), and abnormal but natural production of hCG can all contribute.
Commonly, a home pregnancy test recommends interpretation three to five minutes after use. If left to sit longer than that, 'evaporation lines' may appear in the results window, giving the indication of a positive result when really there is none. Additionally, any home pregnancy test kept past its expiration date should be thrown out, as they are unreliable and frequently test positive.
Sometimes infertile or subfertile women are placed on an hCG regimen to improve their chances of conception. Taking a home pregnancy test while using hCG as a medication will invariably result in a false positive, as the test is measuring the presence of hCG within your system. Switching your medication to a non-hCG fertility drug, such as clomiphene, may make it possible to use a home pregnancy test with some accuracy once the hCG has left your system.
HCG can be produced as a symptom or a side-effect of treatment of cancer, liver disease, or other medical conditions. If you experience recurring positive results when you take a home pregnancy test, but have yet to actually get pregnant, discuss this with your doctor; you may be experiencing recurring chemical pregnancies, or there may be an underlying medical condition going undiagnosed.
Coping with Disappointment
If you were trying to conceive, getting a false positive on a home pregnancy test can feel devastating. Don't let it get you down, though. Next time, be sure to wait until your period is late; pay close attention to the instructions for taking the home pregnancy test; and have someone close to you ready to console or celebrate, depending on the results.
